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Herbert Hoover 
National Food Administrator 



WAR RATIONS for 
PENNSYLVANIANS 

THE STORY OF THE OPERATIONS OF THE 
FEDERAL FOOD ADMINISTRATION IN 

PENNSYLVANIA 

INCLUDING PERSONAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL 
SKETCHES OF ITS OFFICERS AND MEMBERS, 
WITH DRAMATIC, HUMOROUS AND UNUSUAL 
EPISODES IN THE EXPERIENCE OF COUNTY 
ADMINISTRATORS DURING THE WORLD WAR 

By 

GEORGE NOX McCAIN, M.A. 

Member of the Federal Food Administration {for Pennsylvania, and Director o{ 
the Division of Press News; IMember of the General Society of the War 
of 1812; late Lieutenant-Colonel and A.D.C. on the Staff of Gov- 
ernor Daniel H. Hastings; Gran Oficial de la Orden del Liber- 
tador de Venezuela, etc.; Author of "Through the 
Great Campaign," ' The Crinxson Dice," 
"Farm Homes of the North," etc. 



PHILADELPHIA 
THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO. 

IQ20 



Hsio 



Copyright, 1919 

By 

George Nox McCain 



ftPR 26 1920 



©CLA570175 



FOREWORD 

This volume is not intended to be a statistical 
record of the work of the Federal Food Adminis- 
tration in Pennsylvania; a record that necessarily 
would be replete with prosy facts, arid figures, 
and dull reports of no striking value from the 
human interest standpoint. While a complete 
roster of volunteer chiefs, directors and adminis- 
trators is given not every county is represented 
in the narrative. It was not so intended origi- 
nally. There are counties in which no incidents 
outside the commonplace occurred; in others no 
reports were filed, and personal requests for in- 
formation failed to elicit a response. These are 
omitted. There also may be disappointment that 
the names of volunteer assistants who rendered 
splendid and patriotic service are not included. 
This was found to be impossible, not alone because 
it would have defeated the purpose of the work, but 
because a list of all Food Administration volunteers 
in Pennsylvania would make a respectably sized 
volume in itself. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword 3 

General Introduction 5 

Chap. I. Organizing the Administration 19 

" II. The Executive Council 30 

" III. Unpublished Incidents 39 

" IV. Helps and Hindrances 49 

" V. And Pennsylvania Led 56 

" VI. In Philadelphia 67 

" VII. Secret Service and Court 75 

*' VIII. Feeding Ten Millions 85 

" IX. A Vital Problem 102 

" X. Inside Facts iii 

" XI. A Man with an Idea. 120 

*' XII. The Comedy Element 129 

** XIII. How THE Newspapers Helped 139 

" XIV. Woman's Work 146 

" XV. Interesting Episodes 156 

'* XVI. Striking Personalities 167 

" XVII. The Artful Dodgers 183 

" XVIII. The Strangest Story of All 201 

'* XIX. Both Ends of the State 216 

" XX. Unusual Experiences 225 

" XXI. Huns at Home 238 

Conclusion 248 

The Official Roster 250 

Thumb Nail Sketches 254 




Howard Heinz 
Federal Food Administrator for Pennsylvania 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

This is a story of men who in the greatest 
period of trial and struggle that the United 
States has ever known laid aside for more than a 
year all business and professional responsibilities 
to assume, under governmental direction, a task 
that demanded wide experience, calm judgment, 
and capacity for exacting labor, without com- 
pensation or desire of reward of any kind what- 
ever. Coincidentally, history presents no parallel 
to the world-wide conditions which demanded 
this service. Of all nations the United States 
was the most fortunate in having among its 
people men capable and willing to undertake 
this self-imposed task. 

This, therefore, is the story of volunteers, a 
unit in the totality of states, who in the aggregate 
formed what will be known in the commonwealth's 
history as the Federal Food Administration in 
Pennsylvania. In their hands was placed the 
vital questions of food supply and food conserva- 
tion, principally the latter, for the ten million 
people of the state; one- tenth the population of 
the entire country. Less than one hundred per- 
sons comprised the executive staff; a state admin- 
istrator and his vice-administrator, twenty-four 
department chiefs and sixty-seven county repre- 

5 



sentatives. This was the directive force whose 
work was vitahzed and rendered operative only 
through the unselfish and devoted efforts of hun- 
dreds of other patriotic men and women, the staff 
aids and assistants of the county administrators. 

Among the chiefs of division forming the head- 
quarters staff were men appointed because of 
their pecuHar knowledge and experience in certain 
lines of food production and distribution. Experts, 
specially chosen because this same knowledge had 
contributed to their success in business life. In 
the selection of a chief of division or any other 
responsible official, no question of politics, religion 
or personal bias was permitted to intervene. The 
individual was drafted, his selection officially con- 
firmed by Washington, and without even the 
nominal salary of one dollar per annum he entered 
upon his work. 

It was the one civilian activity associated with 
the winning of the World War that was unac- 
companied by colorful accessories, martial dis- 
play, or inspirational music. No uniforms, 
insignia or chevrons were worn by its members 
as distinguishing marks of oflScial position. The 
emblem of the National Food Administration was 
a seal consisting of a shield of the national colors 
on a groundwork of gold, surrounded by a wreath 
of wheat embossed in yellow on a circle of white. 
This in form of a button five-eighths of an inch in 
diameter, mounted in gold, was usually worn by 
executive oflficers and county administrators, 



though its significance as a badge of office was 
nullified by the fact that these buttons in cellu- 
loid and base metal were manufactured by the 
million and offered for sale and worn indiscrim- 
inately throughout the country. 

Being preeminently an organization of civilian 
volunteers, this idea of service was carried to the 
last extreme. The sole exceptions were the clerical 
assistants, practically all of whom were women, 
who were paid prevailing war time salaries. In 
almost every county in the state, however, young 
women of leisure, older women who could be 
spared from the home, and high school students, 
gave their time ungrudgingly in this capacity. 
Every county administrator had on his official 
staff from five to fifty volunteer workers of both 
sexes. Some of these, under stress of circum- 
stances, or the necessity for earning a livelihood, 
could devote but a portion of the day to food 
administration work, but the vaster number prac- 
tically devoted all their time to the service. In- 
dividuals, real estate firms, and business men in 
many instances gave offices rent free; in many 
counties the administrators not only devoted their 
entire time to the work, but contributed liberally 
from their private funds for current expenses. 

Unlike the personnel of other civilian war activi- 
ties the very nature of food administration work 
demanded the services of experts in all lines of 
production and distribution that had to do with 
food commodities. Experts not only in produc- 

7 



tion, but in the marketing of every staple that 
formed a part of the daily menu of the American 
home; whose knowledge of crop conditions ex- 
tended over a period of years and who were willing 
to place the sum of their experience at the dis- 
posal of the administration. 

In Pennsylvania the list of volunteer experts 
embraced men familiar with the supply and 
demand of farm products, perishable fruits and 
vegetables, and mill and refinery products of 
flour and sugar, including transportation facilities 
and trade distribution. Almost without excep- 
tion the men chosen for this work either as chiefs 
of division or expert counsellors, had devoted 
years to the study or handling of these commodi- 
ties. Some of them controlled great business 
enterprises directly or indirectly connected with 
the manufacture or distribution of food in its 
varied forms. While criticism of trade experts 
arose at intervals in other sections of the country, 
in the Federal Food Administration in Pennsyl- 
vania there was not a single instance in which 
any one of its volunteer technical advisers with- 
held information of value or declined to proffer 
helpful advice to the solution of complex prob- 
lems. It was a matter of personal knowledge to 
every member of the headquarters staff in Phila- 
delphia that in numerous instances specialists 
suggested oflScial action that was distinctly inimical 
to their own business and financial interests. The 
knowledge that men of commanding positions in 



certain trade lines were supplying the administra- 
tion with inside information, undoubtedly had a 
salutary effect upon smaller and less patriotic 
dealers who, otherwise, might have taken advan- 
tage of market conditions to profiteer at the 
public expense. 

The vast extent of the administration's work, 
the diversified interests which it was compelled 
to recognize, and at times direct and control, can 
be appreciated only in the enumeration of some 
of its headquarters divisions, each under a separate 
director or chief, but directly responsible to State 
Administrator Heinz, viz., food supply and dis- 
tribution; railroad traffic; supervision of retail 
stores; hotels, eating houses, clubs and cafes; 
supervision and direction of bakeries; milk and 
ice distribution; flour, sugar and meat survey, 
their supply and distribution; examination and 
auditing of books and accounts of mercantile 
and manufacturing establishments and price inter- 
pretation. In addition there were agricultural 
co-operation, dairy husbandry, and grain threshing. 
Among other divisions of co-ordinated activity 
was the maintenance of a Legal Department or 
Division of Enforcement, with chief counsel and 
associates to pass upon and interpret the nume- 
rous government rulings. A trial court was main- 
tained by this department for cases of violation of 
regulations and the imposition of penalties. There 
was a division of investigation and secret service; 
of county inspectors ; and public education in food 



conservation. A food conservation railroad train 
visited every county in the state carrying a group 
of domestic science experts to present another phase 
of administration activity. There was work 
among state Hbraries, colleges and universities, 
public schools, churches, sabbath schools and 
secret societies; a woman's state organization was 
perfected and a woman's food army was organized 
in Philadelphia. 

The above does not comprise all of the divisions 
nor the full list of departmental activities into 
which the work of the administration was divided. 
Intimate co-operation was maintained with the 
State Departments of Agriculture and Labor, the 
Farm Extension Bureau and the State College. 
A chain of curb markets was established over the 
state where farmers, in the interest of economy 
and the conservation of food, were encouraged 
to sell directly to the consumer without the inter- 
vention of middlemen. 

Newspaper publicity was the direst punish- 
ment, from the offenders' standpoint, that could 
be inflicted. In Philadelphia, where violations 
of the food laws were prevalent, prayers and 
entreaties were of no avail to save the guilty 
from this deserved penalty. Every artifice that 
the slacker could invent or the cunning brain of 
his legal adviser devise was resorted to at times 
to keep the names of those convicted of vio- 
lations out of the newspapers. One concern 
offered $10,000 if its name could be omitted from 

10 



the public prints as among those found guilty. 

There were, undoubtedly, occasions when the 
criticism was justified that the sentences inflicted 
upon food law violators were not in proportion 
to the gravity of the offense. Yet it should be 
remembered that in the large cities, where the 
administration was subjected to covert and vitu- 
perative attacks, refusals to observe the regulations 
were confined principally to the ignorant and the 
alien. In a number of cases, not alone in the 
large cities but in mining and manufacturing 
centers of large alien population, the offenses 
were committed because the offender assumed that 
everybody else was equally guilty. The number of 
second offenses, taking into account the total 
number of food law violations in the state, was 
comparatively small. The disgrace of being 
pilloried in the press and compelled to hang a 
placard in the shop window emblazoning the fact 
that the place was closed for violation of food 
regulations, had a deterrent effect upon shop- 
keepers who for the sake of paltry gain would, 
otherwise, have taken another chance at attempt- 
ing to deceive the administration. 

It was an appreciation of the difficulties in the 
enforcement of exacting regulations equally ap- 
plicable to every household and individual in the 
state, that rendered Howard Heinz and his 
associates particularly careful in the selection 
of men to be county administrators or chiefs 
of division. 

11 



How were selections for these responsible posi- 
tions made? 

It was a sort of endless chain procedure. If it 
was found necessary to organize a new division 
or to divide the work of a large one into two, thus 
requiring the selection of a new chief, some member 
of the staff usually recalled the name of an in- 
dividual who had the necessary abiUty and 
experience to qualify for the position. These 
appointees in turn suggested others. The indi- 
vidual, usually a man active in business life, was 
invited to headquarters for a conference. The 
plea was sometimes advanced: 

"I cannot leave my business. I recognize the 
necessity and the fact that every man in this 
crisis should do his duty, but isn't it possible for 
you to find some one else who is not carrying the 
load of responsibility that I am? To undertake 
this work will mean serious financial loss to me." 

And the headquarters' reply was: 

"It is because you have great responsibilities 
and are a busy man that you have been chosen 
for this work. You would not be busy if you were 
not successful. We have got to have a man of 
your ability and experience in charge of this 
division. Shift your responsibilities to the shoul- 
ders of your business associates. You would be 
compelled to do this if you were within the 
draft qualifying limit and were conscripted for 
service in France. You have been drafted for 
service in the Food Administration and you are 

12 



expected to take your place with other men who 
have undertaken service in the organization under 
conditions similar to your own." 

And this argument invariably won. 

There were not more than one or two men who 
escaped this civilian conscription. Two chiefs of 
division at headquarters resigned to undertake 
other government service where they felt a 
greater need for them existed. Others, although 
exempted from the draft, resigned to enter the 
army. In the entire force of the Food Adminis- 
tration at headquarters there were but two cases 
of men eligible for military service who did not 
resign. One was rejected and the other was 
retained because of peculiar ability required in 
connection with administration work. 

In the selection of a county administrator sug- 
gestions were invited from the leading business 
and financial interests of the county. In several 
instances men who had been county chairmen of 
the Committee of Public Safety were appointed 
and filled the dual positions. Usually a discreet 
system of inquiry was inaugurated as to character, 
standing in the community, probity and sound 
judgment. A member of the Executive Council, 
familiar with the county, visited it and conducted 
the inquiry after which, the report being favorable, 
the gentleman was asked to accept the position. 
In no war work did politics play such an unim- 
portant part. A man whose appointment was 
urged by a political leader for a position of 

13 



responsibility instantly fell under suspicion. The 
work demanded a high degree of business or pro- 
fessional ability, not political acumen or skill. 
Yet in the Executive Council of the administra- 
tion were representatives of every political party: 
Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, Prohibition- 
ists and Single Taxers. It was not a question 
whether a man was a Democrat or a Republican; 
the paramount issue was, ** Is he capable of han- 
dling the job?" "Can he put it over?" 

On one occasion a member of the Philadelphia 
bar appearing for a client who had been a per- 
sistent violator of administration rules, fortified 
himself with a letter from a prominent state 
leader, a fact he discreetly announced to the chief 
of one of the important divisions. 

"I'd advise you to keep that letter in your 
pocket," said the official. "It'll certainly not do 
your client any good, and it may injure his case. 
This is war, not politics." 

The letter never saw the light of day so far as 
any member of the administration was aware. 

Nor did the question of wealth or social position 
influence the selection of the individual. There 
were men serving in the organization whose 
modest income rendered their activity a great 
sacrifice; there were others who were masters in 
the world of finance and who not only contributed 
their services, working longer hours and under 
less congenial conditions than they had ever done 
before, but in addition bore all the expenses of 

14 



office management supplemented from time to time 
by liberal contributions to other phases of the 
work. 

While the law of the Food Administration 
required that every administrator or chief of a 
division must be a volunteer serving the Govern- 
ment without salary, there were hundreds of other 
men and women in the state equally as patriotic 
serving as volunteers in less responsible but none 
the less necessary positions. With the exception 
of a secretary or perhaps one or two stenographers, 
every county administrator organized his staff on 
the basis of volunteer service. The monthly 
expenses of some of the county administrators 
seemed ridiculously disproportionate to the amount 
of work performed and results accomplished. 

The administration in Pennsylvania was par- 
ticularly fortunate from the outstart in receiving 
liberal aid from the state fund of the Committee 
of Public Safety and Council of National Defense. 
It would have been impossible otherwise to have 
maintained the high standard of efficiency which 
was the administration's distinguishing character- 
istic. One of the finest records made by Pennsyl- 
vania in its contribution to the winning of the 
World War, next to that of its sons in the field, 
was the liberality with which it assisted in financ- 
ing the Federal Food Administration work within 
its borders. 

In an organization the size and character of the 
Food Administration it would have been little 

15 



short of the marvelous not to have found occa- 
sions for misunderstandings among men of diver- 
sified views, temperament and training. There 
were one or two instances of county administrators 
in which an exaggerated idea of their own im- 
portance led them to place their own interpreta- 
tion upon Washington's rulings; but they were 
soon brought to a realization of their error. 

That criticism should be directed against the 
administration was inevitable. Adverse criticism 
subdivided itself into three classes: First, from 
pro-German or pacificist sources; second, from 
those who had violated food laws and suffered 
accordingly, and third, from individuals who de- 
claimed from lack of proper information concern- 
ing administration work. All such railing, as a 
rule, made its devious way by the spoken work 
through the channels of street gossip. The news- 
paper press, which was kept intimately informed 
of the actions and purposes of the administration, 
was in a position to speak impartially and threw 
its vast influence on the side of the administration 
with a power for good that was incalculable. Not 
that the newspapers refrained from criticising or 
censuring the judgment that dictated certain 
rulings, but the knowledge that it was a war 
necessity whose reflex action might tell mightily 
on the fate of civilization, tempered their utter- 
ances to a point where the animadversion became 
helpful comment. 

The conspicuous position that the Pennsylvania 

16 



organization held in the esteem of Washington 
was predicated not alone upon its efficiency, but 
for the reason that in several notable instances, 
through the acumen and farsightedness of its 
chief counsel, Charles J. Hepburn, Esq., it had 
devised machinery for the punishment of food vio- 
lators so perfect, that it was impossible for this 
traitorous element to escape. The "unfair order" 
devised by Mr. Hepburn was first put in operation 
in this state and was adopted by Washington and 
extended to every other state in the union. In con- 
nection with its operation the "Red Cross Pen- 
alty," another of his clever expedients, had its 
first imposition in this state. The farseeing plans 
of Herbert G. Stockwell, Chief of the Division of 
Audits, for revolutionizing retail trade to the 
benefit of those engaged in it as well as to the 
consumer, made a profound impression in Wash- 
ington. These, combined with the unceasing 
activity of the organization, the perfection of its 
machinery, and the constant succession of new 
ideas evolved, rendered Pennsylvania conspicuous 
among the states. 

The most notable tribute to the character 
of the personnel of the Pennsylvania organization 
was the proffer of high executive positions in 
Washington to members of the headquarters staff. 
Only one of these was accepted ; the appointment 
of Howard Heinz to be Director of Food Relief 
for Southeastern Europe, with headquarters in 
Constantinople. This position was not accepted 

17 



until it became apparent that the activities of 
the Food Administration in Pennsylvania were 
practically at an end and that a new field among 
the stricken countries of Europe presented itself 
for the exercise of his remarkable abilities as an 
organizer. 



18 



CHAPTER I 

ORGANIZING THE ADMINISTRATION. 

Appointment of Howard Heinz as Food Admin- 
istrator FOR Pennsylvania — Forming 
A Volunteer Working Force. 

The genesis of the Federal Food Administration 
in Pennsylvania was devoid of the romantic or 
unusual. Its foundations were laid months before 
the Act of Congress called the National Organiza- 
tion into existence. Preceding and following the 
declaration of war against the Hun there came 
chronologically : 

The appointment by Governor Martin G. Brum- 
baugh in March, 191 7, of a Committee of Public 
Safety. Its organization into fifteen departments 
or committees by its Chairman, George Wharton 
Pepper, Esq., with Howard Heinz of Pittsburgh as 
Director of the Department of Food Supply. 

An act of the Legislature in May, creating a 
Commission of Public Safety and appropriating 
$2,000,000 for state defense and the exigencies 
of war. 

The Committee of Public Safety early in August, 
191 7, became known as the Council of National 
Defense and Public Safety. 

19 



The creation of a United States Food Adminis- 
tration under Act of Congress, August lo, 191 7. 

The appointment in September, 1917, of Howard 
Heinz, Director of the Food Supply Department 
of the Committee of PubHc Safety to be Federal 
Food Administrator for the state. 

It was on this foundation that the great struc- 
ture of the Federal Food Administration in 
Pennsylvania, with its diverse interests, had its 
beginnings. 

It is doubtful if Howard Heinz, the man who 
organized and carried this work to successful com- 
pletion, really visualized at the time of his ap- 
pointment the magnitude of the task that was 
to develop under his hands. Four months of 
experience as Director of the Food Supply De- 
partment of the Public Safety Committee had 
afforded him an insight into methods of state 
organization, and strengthened his grasp upon 
essentials. The federal work, however, was some- 
thing immeasurably larger and more potential; 
behind its mandates and rulings loomed the 
majestic power of the United States Government. 

The man selected first as Director of the Com- 
mittee on Food Supply in the Pennsylvania 
Safety Organization, and later as food adminis- 
trator for the state, was a Pennsylvanian by birth 
whose entire business career, in association with his 
father and brothers, was that of a manufacturer of 
food products, H. J. Heinz Company of Pittsburgh, 
with branch factories throughout the United 

20 



States and Canada, being the largest of its kind 
in the world. The estabhshment was founded by 
the elder Heinz in a small way years before the 
future food administrator was born. From this 
modest beginning came the vast concern with its 
organized powers of distribution and its sales 
agencies all over the world. 

The selection of Howard Heinz was a fortuitous 
choice. Not only familiar with important phases 
of the food question, he was so situated with the 
accessory of an ample fortune that he could adjust 
his business interests in such fashion to enable 
him to devote his entire time to the demands of 
his Government. There were criticisms over his 
appointment, just as there were complimentary 
references based on his known integrity and fitness 
for the place. The animadversions were short- 
lived. The career of Howard Heinz in his official 
position emphasized the fact that the adverse 
criticisms were based upon unfounded miscon- 
ceptions. There are temperamental characteristics 
which in every human are manifested as indi- 
vidual traits inseparable from his personality. 
Howard Heinz, let it be frankly said, possessed 
no more of these than any other red-blooded man 
whose development had been along business lines 
of an exacting daily experience. He knew men. 
He was a tactician. In the face of difficulties, 
and they were of daily and ofttimes of hourly 
occurrence, he was at once a diplomat and a 
fighter. Upon one occasion it became necessary 

21 



to display to a certain firm the iron hand within 
the velvet glove. The revelation was a surprise 
to him, but the report of the chief of the division 
revealed the ugly facts. 

"That concern has been one of the best cus- 
tomers of our firm for years. Vm sorry for them, 
but if you are sure of your facts go after them. 
They deserve no consideration whatever under 
the circumstances." 

Of medium height, slender, cordial and sym- 
pathetic in his intercourse with men, never brusque 
or given to the use of expletives, with a keenness 
born of experience that readily gave him an 
insight into the motives of men, the consensus 
of opinion of those intimately associated with 
him during his official career was that of a man 
peculiarly fitted for the position which he so 
successfully filled to his own honor and that of his 
government. 

The evidence of the high personal esteem in 
which Mr. Heinz was held by his associates was 
manifested toward the close of his administration 
in the presentation, at the Bellevue-Stratford 
Hotel, Philadelphia, of a silver service, the gift 
of members of the Executive Council and the 
County Administrators of the state. 

The events antecedent to his appointment as 
food administrator for Pennsylvania can be dis- 
missed with brief reference. His first act after 
his appointment as director of the Department 
of Food Supply of the Committee of Public 

22 



Safety was the selection of an Advisory Com- 
mittee of sixteen selected from men prominent 
in the business and professional life of the state. 
They included Lewis S. Sadler of Carlisle, who 
filled the responsible position of executive manager 
for the Committee of Public Safety and whose 
abilities were later recognized by Governor Sproul 
in his appointment as State Commissioner of 
Highways; J. S. Crutchfield, who became vice- 
food administrator under Mr. Heinz; Hon. E. L. 
Tustin of Philadelphia, former state senator and 
city official of Philadelphia; Hon. E. V. Babcock 
of Pittsburgh, a prominent business man and 
former mayor of that city; W. L. Clause, also of 
Pittsburgh, and A. W. Mellon, conspicuous in 
the financial life of that western metropolis; 
Hon. Frank B. McClain, lieutenant-governor; 
Hon. Joseph Buffington, of the United States 
Court; M. E. Bushong of Quarry^^ille, subse- 
quently food administrator for Lancaster County; 
J. Russell Smith of Philadelphia; C. B. Ewing 
of Mount Union; John MacSparren, head of the 
State Grange; Prof. M. S. McDowell, noted 
educator and publicist of State College, and Mrs. 
Charles M. Lea who, later, became chief of the 
Woman's Division of the Food Administration, a 
position she filled with distinguished success. 

Headquarters were established in Philadelphia. 
This provoked a protest from those who felt that 
being a native of Pittsburgh, the director of the 
department should have located his headquarters 

23 



in that city. In default of any information from 
Howard Heinz on the subject, it is presumed that 
a desire to render the fullest service in his new 
position prompted the decision. In Philadelphia 
he was in direct touch with every prominent inter- 
state line of communication by rail and river, and 
a market whose sources of supply were drawn 
from three famous gardening states in the East. 
The personal equation in the decision doubtless 
was that in Pittsburgh he would be in closer touch 
with business associates which would encourage 
the intrusion upon his time of extraneous matters 
to the detriment of his official duties. J. S. 
Crutchfield was made vice-director of the Depart- 
ment of Food Supplies. As one of the most 
successful merchants in the country, specializing 
in the marketing of fruits and vegetables that 
embraced products from the orange groves of 
California to the potato fields of Aroostook County, 
Maine, his grasp upon the Pennsylvania situation 
was instant and comprehensive. 

Three cardinal principles were adopted by Mr. 
Heinz as an undeviating working rule, viz. : 

To increase the food productiveness of the 
commonwealth. 

To conserve its food supply and reduce its 
waste. 

To facilitate food distribution and marketing. 

These principles can be recognized as the 
essence of all that the Food Administration sub- 
sequently attempted and achieved. 

24 



Rapidly summarizing this period of pre-adminis- 
tration work, food supply chairmen were ap- 
pointed in every county; they in turn appointed 
committees throughout their districts. Farm work 
was well advanced before these organizations were 
perfected, yet where requests were made for 
fertilizers, implements, seed and labor, they were 
supplied as far as possible. People were urged to 
cultivate vacant land. City war gardens were 
planned. Informative literature, posters, bulletins 
and placards were exhibited and leaflets by the 
hundred thousand were distributed with inspiring 
suggestions. Community markets, the precursors 
of the curb markets of administration days, were 
encouraged where farmers could dispose of sur- 
plus stocks that were too valuable to throw away, 
yet not valuable enough to ship to distant markets. 
Unconsciously, the people under the inspiration 
of the Committee of Public Safety of which Geo. 
Wharton Pepper, descendant of the first chairman 
of the first Committee of Public Safety in the 
historic dawn of the republic, was chairman, with 
eager hands were laying the foundation of a greater 
structure. 

The clamor of the war tocsin as the days went 
by could not drown the cries of protest that went 
up from every part of the country over the rapidly 
advancing prices of food commodities. It became 
apparent even to the less astute that remedial leg- 
islation must be enacted to prevent a carnival of 
profiteering. Herbert Hoover, the Californian 

25 



mining engineer who had driven the wolf of famine 
from the door of Belgium, was looked to as the 
new Joshua that was to overthrow the Midianites 
of profiteers. Men in Congress with the wider 
vision took up the question and on the loth of 
August, 1917, the act creating a National Food 
Administration became a law, and Herbert Hoover 
was appointed food administrator for the nation. 
His Belgian experience had prepared him for 
the position. Organization was his master key. 

The Food Administration edifice began rising 
with the celerity of a modern steel skyscraper. 
Howard Heinz was the one conspicuous name 
suggested at Washington for state food adminis- 
trator. It was a suggestion born of the work 
that had been accomplished under his direction 
in organizing the forces of food supply and dis- 
tribution in Pennsylvania. The groundwork 
for the greater structure of the Federal Food 
Administration was already in place. The ap- 
pointment of Mr. Heinz was made in September 
by President Wilson, through the advice and sug- 
gestion of Herbert Hoover. He retained to the 
end his position of director of the Food Supply 
Department of the Committe of Public Safety 
of Pennsylvania, associating with it the larger 
service of Federal Food Administrator for the 
state. With a common purpose and a complete 
absence of conflicting interests the harmonious 
blending of these vast economic activities was 
maintained to the end of hostilities. 

26 



An office, twelve by twenty feet in size, in the 
Morris Building in Philadelphia, was secured as 
the first headquarters of the administration. 
It was a workroom rather than an office. In 
the limited confines of the room two desks and a 
table were installed. Mr. Heinz for weeks after 
his appointment retained his personal headquarters 
in the Finance Building, visiting the administra- 
tion office only as conditions demanded. And 
here was witnessed the birth of the volunteer 
system of war service that particularly character- 
ized this great war work. W. C. MacBride and 
W. W. Eliason undertook the temporary organiza- 
tion as volunteers. Mr. MacBride active, incisive, 
with a background of business experience extend- 
ing through years, had the office management; 
Mr. Eliason, another graduate of the school of 
experience in Philadelphia business life, and to 
whose unfailing courtesy members of the adminis- 
tration forces were greatly indebted, assisted in 
the work; J. A. Finley, president of a lumber 
concern, was in charge of books and accounts. In 
describing the experiences of that era of small 
beginnings, one member of the trio said : 

"We had scarcely taken possession of the room 
when work for double our force began to accumu- 
late. Mail began piling in. From a merely clerical 
force designed for routine office work, the situation 
evolved to where it became necessary to interpret 
rulings from Washington. The people, new to 
the changed conditions, were writing letters by 

27 



the hundreds demanding explanations or making 
protests. It was August and unusually warm, 
but the job held the charm of novelty and it was 
not unusual for members of our little force to 
work till ten and eleven o'clock at night. Our 
first relief came with the appointment of Chas. J. 
Hepburn, Esq., as Counsel to the Administration. 
He lifted the burden of interpretation from the 
shoulders of one our force. Even then the labor 
imposed upon Hepburn was such that he, too, 
was compelled frequently to remain until nearly 
midnight at his desk. In the interim the clerical 
staff was growing. There was a hesitancy about 
the employment of women in the work, and a 
tendency to regard it strictly as a man's job. 
This lasted but a short time, or until it was made 
clear that woman's efficiency in certain positions 
was equal to every demand." 

The administration offices were maintained in 
the Morris Building during August and Septem- 
ber, 1917. Before more commodious quarters were 
secured in the Bulletin Building, the administra- 
tion's mail was increased prodigiously by the 
output of propaganda, instructions, and rulings 
from Washington. The work of investigating 
violations of the new food laws was gotten under 
way, after Mr. Hepburn had organized a staff of 
legal assistants to deal with questions of enforce- 
ment and interpretation. The divisions of supply, 
office management, and of government licenses 

28 




Charles J. Hepburn 
Chief Counsel for Pennsylvania 



were organized and when the new and more spa- 
cious headquarters on the fifth floor of the Bulletin 
Building were opened, there likewise opened a 
new vista for the Federal Food Administration in 
Pennsylvania. 



29 



CHAPTER II 

THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL. 

An Intimate View of a Body that Handled 

Some Great Food Problems 

For Pennsylvania. 

The distinctive feature at headquarters was the 
Executive Council, which met every morning at 
nine o'clock. Administrator Heinz presided and 
directed the conduct of its affairs. It was com- 
posed of the vice-administrator, the administrator 
for Philadelphia, and chiefs of divisions. Occa- 
sionally a technical adviser was in attendance. 
If a county administrator happened to be in 
the building during a session he was invited in. 
With these exceptions no other person was per- 
mitted to be present. It was understood that 
all deliberations and discussions were confidential 
and not to be discussed outside. 

The first meeting of the council was held when 
the administration offices were moved to the 
Bulletin Building. The organization was per- 
fected after the manner of the council at food 
administration headquarters in Washington, where 
Mr. Hoover or in his absence Mr. Hallowell, 
presided. It afforded an opportunity to discuss 

30 



I ifl^'A 




J. S Crutchfield 
Vice Food Administrator for Pennsylvania 



matters of administration, encouraged diversity 
of views, and in its advisory capacity was helpful 
to the state administrator in formulating whatever 
policies were necessary to the prosecution of his 
work. The one great advantage, however, was 
that it economized the time of the administrator. 
Instead of being compelled to listen to sugges- 
tions, queries on management, and the various 
details of each division's routine, every man 
brought his troubles to the council where they were 
discussed and rapidly and satisfactorily disposed of. 

At the beginning, the hour of meeting was 
fixed for 8.30 in the morning, but this was 
found to be inconvenient owing to the fact that 
several members resided in the suburbs, or at 
some distance from the city, and it was impossible, 
due to congestion of war traffic on the railroads, 
for them to reach the office at that hour. Nine 
o'clock was finally determined upon, and on certain 
mornings 9.15, as the hour of meeting. 

The council met in Mr. Heinz's private office. 
It was a large room, twenty by twenty, at the 
northwestern corner of the fifth floor of the 
Bulletin Building. The members at first were very 
prompt in assembling, but as the weeks went by 
and the functions of the administration widened, 
there were frequent absences and, with two or 
three exceptions, considerable tardiness in 
getting to the meeting. When the offices were 
removed to the eleventh floor of the Finance 
Building the council had increased almost to 

31 



double its original size by the organization of 
additional divisions. Tardiness at the daily meet- 
ings became for a time more general, until by 
unanimous consent a unique rule was adopted, 
and strictly enforced, which compelled an attend- 
ance that would have been otherwise impossible 
to secure. Nine o'clock sharp was fixed as the 
hour. Every member who was not in the private 
office of the administrator at that hour was fined 
one dollar. It did not matter whether the de- 
linquent was just outside the door, or was half a 
minute or half an hour late, the fine was imposed 
just the same. No excuses were permitted. A 
late train, a long-distance call on the telephone, a 
garrulous visitor, or even a slight indisposition 
were not accepted as valid excuses for tardiness. 
Mr. Heinz, from his desk — his room looked directly 
out upon Penn Square and the City Hall clock 
tower — could note the exact time; usually two 
or three members stood near the windows, watch 
in hand, timing each arrival. 

On one occasion a member offered the excuse, 
which was not accepted, that owing to an appoint- 
ment with his dentist it had kept him in the chair 
until it was impossible to reach the office on the 
instant of nine. On several occasions Vice- 
Administrator Crutchfield, who had brought his 
family from Pittsburgh to Atlantic City for 
the summer, was delayed by poor train service; 
but this served as no sufficient excuse, and profit- 
ing by his experience, he made it a rule thereafter 

32 



to take an earlier train. Jay Cooke, on another 
occasion, received a long-distance call five minutes 
before nine, from the Chief of the Legal Divi- 
sion in Washington. The conversation over 
the wire did not end until five minutes after 
nine, but the Philadelphia administrator was com- 
pelled to deposit a crisp one-dollar bill on the 
shining surface of Mr. Heinz's mahogany desk 
when he finally reached the council room. Several 
crafty chiefs of division, who resided twenty-five 
miles or more from the city, and who were com- 
pelled to rise at an hour that would have been 
considered very unseasonable were they attending 
to their own business, got their heads together 
and cunningly arranged a method to evade the 
fine on occasions when they were late. It was very 
simple. They did not attend council meeting on 
those particular mornings, and, as the fine was 
exacted for tardiness only, they were each one 
dollar to the good when their trains were late. 

The money thus collected was the only cash 
ever received by the United States Food Adminis- 
tration in Pennsylvania that did not go into the 
coffers of the Red Cross. When sufficient had 
accumulated, Mr. Heinz's private secretary, Maur- 
ice Lacy, would purchase a box of cigars which 
was placed on the desk free to every member of 
the council. 

There were several members who preferred a 
pipe to the most fragrant Havana. Willock was 

33 



wedded to a particularly disreputable looking 
dudheen, black, with corrugated edges, a straight 
stem and a drawing capacity like the chimney 
of a chemical works. Hepburn was the possessor 
of a French briar. He was an inveterate smoker. 
He carried with him in his vest pocket a small 
array of diminutive nickel tools an inch long on 
a ring attached to his watch chain. With one he 
would prod the tobacco into the bowl of the pipe ; 
with another he would loosen up the mass when 
it became compact; the third was a general pur- 
pose instrument sacred to the mysteries of pipe- 
ology. Dow, Dunn, Jay Cooke and Stockwell 
were inveterate cigar smokers. Cooke always used 
an elongated cigar holder of heavy white paper, 
which he discarded with the remnant of his cigar. 
Crutchfield, Rasmussen, Haller, Tyson and King 
never smoked in council. Wright, Shallcross and 
Smith rarely smoked. Frazier, I never recall 
having seen smoke in council, although Elcock, 
McCain and Beerits would occasionally indulge 
in this direction. It was interesting to hear the 
protests of the non-smokers against enforced 
contributions to the cigar fund by fine. There 
were impassioned appeals to the fairness of the 
individual members of the council; there were 
vigorous and pathetic requests to *'have a heart;" 
but all were in vain; in the end the one dollar 
was deposited on the table and credited to the 
fund. 
Administrator Heinz presided at the meetings 

34 



and in his absence Vice-Administrator Crutch- 
field took the chair. When both were absent 
then the Chief Counsel C. J. Hepburn, or Jay 
Cooke called the meeting to order. In the center 
of the room were two large mahogany desks, 
with flat polished tops, placed side by side. On 
one side sat Mr. Heinz and directly opposite 
either Hepburn or Cooke. The bareness of the 
walls was relieved by a framed picture of Herbert 
Hoover and two of his assistants. There were 
two other group pictures of gatherings of ad- 
ministrators in Washington. One entire side 
wall was covered by a map of Pennsylvania. 
The members arranged themselves around the 
room without any special reference to seniority 
or official position. Usually Cooke sat to the 
right of Howard Heinz, Hepburn at the desk 
directly facing the administrator, the other mem- 
bers forming a circle or semicircle around the 
Joom. 

The members represented, in fact and in an- 
cestry, every section of the country and every 
line of descent, from the patroons of New York, 
represented by Dunn, to the new, virile blood of 
Western Europe, red and aggressive, in Rasmus- 
sen; the keen business and practically philan- 
thropic strain of Heinz; the ancestry of great 
financiers of Cooke; the Quaker of Shallcross; and 
the Scotch-Irish in Smith. There were Yankees 
of blue New England blood, like Dow and Stock- 
well; Southerners whose kin had fought under 

35 



the stars and bars, like Crutchfield; products of 
the great Middle West, like King; and with them 
all descendants of the Irish of the 30's and the 
sturdy strain of Pennsylvania Dutch. By way 
of religion there were Presbyterians and Catholics, 
Baptists and Methodists, Lutherans and Episco- 
palians, Disciples and Reformed, Quakers and 
Swedenborgians. 

It was Heinz that led off with the daily outline. 
It was Hepburn who brought the meeting up 
standing, a right index finger pointed to some 
particular insistent member, with the expression, 
"Now just a moment. Have you considered this 
fact?'' And then came an exposition of the law 
or some new slant on the psychology of the situa- 
tion. Cooke usually interjected some clean-cut 
observation, the view of the business man, or if 
the subject was agricultural it would be Ras- 
mussen who in his direct unemotional way would 
exclaim, "I think you're on the wrong track;" 
and then Philips and Tyson would endorse his 
view. Mayhap it would be Willock ever on the 
lookout for the weak spot in a proposition, who 
would thrust out an aggressive jaw with the 
warning, "Don't let 'em fool you," or the com- 
plaisant Dow bearing conciliation in his tone who 
would remark: "There's another side to this 
question and it's this," followed by a new angle 
on the subject under discussion. There were 
divergent opinions, too, vigorous and emphatic, 
but never acrimonious. There was confusion at 

36 



times when all spoke at once and the administrator 
after a while, with a patient smile, would restore 
order by a knock with a paperweight and the 
remark, "Come now, gentlemen, let's get back 
to the original proposition/' It was all an expres- 
sion of the earnestness of men intense upon great 
issues. 

The proclamation of the armistice took a lot 
of enthusiasm out of the work and the meetings 
of the council became less interesting and less 
important as the weeks drifted by toward the 
beginning of 19 19. Personal interests began 
manifesting themselves and absenteeism grew 
rapidly. The fine for tardiness was abandoned, 
the attendance grew smaller and smaller and at 
the final meeting in January, but five members 
were present. 

The last meeting of the Executive Council in 
February, 19 19, was presided over by Jay Cooke. 
Only a little handful of the original staff was 
present. They had returned to civic life. Heinz 
was in Turkey. Cooke spoke the final words that 
disbanded the organization, briefly and to the 
point: 

"Gentlemen, I think our work is done. I thank 
you on behalf of Howard Heinz for your faithful- 
ness. I am ready to entertain a motion to adjourn 
sine die. 

With the passing of the Executive Council, the 
Food Administration practically ceased to exist. 
The sole remaining work consisted in closing up 

37 



the various business affairs. And thus came to 
an end one of the most interesting bodies that ever 
existed in Pennsylvania and one which was a 
powerful unit in the civilian war work in this 
country. 



38 



ii 



CHAPTER III 

UNPUBLISHED INCIDENTS. 

Anecdotes and Episodes of Headquarters 

Routine — How the Preliminary Flour 

Survey was Precipitated, 

Could Master Francis Rabelais, during the 
period of the administration's activities, have 
returned from out the mists of three centuries 
and journeyed from city to city and county to 
county in the state of William Penn, he could 
have gathered from the daily experiences of 
administrators enough material to have embel- 
lished a score of Pantagruelian histories. Each 
day produced its prolific toll of tales of the odd 
and the humorous; and yet every one of them 
interwoven in the warp of the mighty world 
conflict beyond the seas. This, however, is a 
plain tale. There is no garnishing of rhetorical 
flourishes around its edges. Its material has been 
gathered, in many instances, from personal contact 
with county administrators; some the result of 
acquaintance or friendships extending over a 
period of years. 

Unfortunately innumerable experiences, not only 
of dramatic but historic interest, have been lost 

39 



because the official did not possess the news 
perspective of ultimate value. And so in weaving 
these narratives into a continuous story little 
attempt has been made to arrange them in se- 
quence of similarity or geographical subdivision. 
Episodes at Philadelphia headquarters are re- 
corded without special regard to chronological 
arrangement in the narration. After all, as a 
great writer has observed, "history is the recital 
of incidents and anecdotes.'' He might also have 
added biographies. 

Conditions surrounding the work of the admin- 
istration did not readily lend themselves to inci- 
dents of the somber or pathetic, yet now and 
then some such one obtruded itself into the life 
at headquarters. Two or three members of the 
force will, doubtless, never forget one contribu- 
tion to their memory of administration days: 
the plainly dressed woman, with care-shadowed 
face, who made her way into one of the offices 
when they were in the Bulletin Building. 

Anger and tears were in her eyes; mental suffer- 
ing and indignation struggled for the mastery in 
her expression. In her hands she carried a crudely 
wrapped something in half of a newspaper. It 
was during the period when every member of the 
administration from Mr. Hoover down to the 
humblest township worker was urging upon the 
ten million the imperative need for conservation of 
flour and the necessity of guarding against its 
slightest waste. The exodus of our armies to the 

40 



fields of France was then beginning to impress 
the people with the magnitude of the task we 
had undertaken. The people in the churches, 
the children in the public schools, the housewives, 
the hotel chefs, everybody, were urged not to let 
a scrap of bread be wasted or carelessly thrown 
away. With trembling hands the woman un- 
wrapped the newspaper and disclosed a quarter 
of a loaf of perfectly good bread a trifle stale. 

"Look," she exclaimed, thrusting it forward 
for inspection, in a voice trembling with emotion. 
"Where do you think I got this? Out of a gar- 
bage can on Walnut Street. It's an outrage. Our 
boys on the other side need flour and bread; the 
people c^ France need it, and the Food Adminis- 
tration is telling us we've got to save; then look 
at this." Her voice had risen to a strident little 
wail and the clerks and oflScials saw that her 
eyes were full of tears. 

"What are you people going to do about it.^ 
Why don't you prosecute those who throw good 
bread into the garbage.? What's the use of 
preaching to people who pay no attention to what 
you say. Prosecute them!" By this time the 
tears were on her cheeks. 

"I've got a boy in France and he's fighting for 
traitors who do this sort of thing; waste good 
bread that maybe he needs." She shook the 
quarter loaf in a feeble menacing way. "What 
are you going to do? What good is your adminis- 
tration if you can't stop this? If you won't do 

41 



anything, then I will. I'm going to see if the 
police can't do something." 

By this time it was evident that the poor woman 
was bordering on hysterics and in the kindliest 
way one of the clerks led her, with soothing words, 
into the corridor where he explained that while 
persons who wilfully wasted food should be re- 
garded as traitors and pro-Huns, yet there was no 
criminal law that could be invoked to punish 
them. Finally she left the building. The result 
of this incident, however, was a general awakening 
around the office to the widespread practice of 
wasting food in households and the matter was 
taken up with the purpose and result of definite 
action. 

There were substantial reasons at various times 
for the belief that enemy alien servants werv^. 
operating a systematic plan to waste food in 
hotels, restaurants and private homes of the 
wealthier class. In several instances investigators 
in Philadelphia discovered that there was an 
agreement between apartment house janitors and 
the kitchen help whereby the servants wasted as 
much food as possible. The contents of the gar- 
bage can were disposed of for a cash consideration 
for chicken and swine feed and the money divided 
pro rata, thus making it profitable for the servants 
to feed the garbage cans rather than their em- 
ployers. The general announcement of a sys- 
tematic investigation of the contents of garbage 
pails of the city resulted in a great improvement. 

42 




< 
H 

o 

E- 
< 
> 

W 
c« 

o 

Q 
O 
O 

a 

H 



The amount of waste it was discovered materially 
decreased. A similarly favorable report was made 
by those in charge of garbage incinerating plants 
of city contractors. 

Within a week volunteer inspectors by Adminis- 
trator Cooke's direction were at work down town 
particularly in the wealthier residential and apart- 
ment house sections of the city. Here was found 
the ample evidence of food waste. Inspectors 
reported garbage cans half filled with bread 
crusts, slices of bread, stale fancy cakes, meat 
scraps, and mouldy cereal that had been cooked 
and permitted to become uneatable. Sheer care- 
lessness and wilful waste. 

Later, school children in certain sections of the 
city were organized into squads and morning after 
morning followed the garbage contractors' carts 
and noted the houses from whence the greatest 
amount of ruined food was taken. Personal calls 
were then made at these homes to direct attention 
to this lack of economy in their kitchens. In 
certain homes south of Market Street from Twelfth 
Street to the Schuylkill and from Market Street 
to Pine were found some of the most flagrant 
cases of food waste by servants discovered in the 
city. Finally, one of the leading women of the 
city invited the chefs and butlers of the wealthier 
families to the number of several hundred, to a 
meeting at which they pledged themselves to 
aid in food conservation. At the same time, J. 
Miller Frazier, Chief of the Division of Hotels, 

43 



Clubs and Restaurants, was preaching the gospel 
of food conservation in the saving of hotel food 
with remarkable effectiveness throughout the state; 
for it was generally recognized that thousands of 
pounds of bread could be saved every month in 
the hotels, restaurants and boarding houses if the 
kitchen forces could be aroused to the gravity of 
the situation. 

It was during the flour registration period, when 
the corridors of the food offices were packed with 
those seeking information or registry, that the 
Chief of the Division of Press News stepped from 
the elevator on the ground floor to be confronted 
by a frightened negro whose fears were manifest 
in his trembling lips and hesitating manner. 

"Say, Boss, where 'bouts d'you find dis yer 
food 'minstration man?" he inquired in his soft 
Virginia accent. 

"What do you wish to see him about?" 

"I wants to tell him 'bout mah flouh." 

"How much have you on hand?" 

"Well, Boss, y'see it's dis a'way," and his heavy 
lips trembled with apprehension as he approached 
the critical point. 

" I got nine pounds uh white flouh, an' — an' " 

"Well, go on." 

"An' I got 'leben pounds uh cohn meal an' 
six pounds uh bacon." Then with indescribable 
apprehension he added: 

"But say. Boss, y' ain't gwine to lift de bacon 
am y' ?" 

44 



Among the unwritten stories is that of the flour 
survey. I had been a member of the council for 
less than a week and had heard the proposed 
flour survey of the state discussed several times 
but was not aware that the matter had been talked 
over and plans mapped out days before I was 
appointed. On this particular morning the flour 
situation was talked over in desultory fashion 
and just before adjournment of the council 
Administrator Heinz ended a little cross fire of 
discussion with Hepburn and Cooke as though 
delivering an ultimatum : 

"Well, then, it's decided, we'll give them forty- 
eight hours. Everything should be cleaned up 
within that time. In cases where no returns are 
made within that period it'll be because they 
deliberately withheld their statements. We'll 
consider it settled." 

New to the council and anxious to obtain for the 
newspapers everything that it was possible in the 
way of news, I made note of the flour survey but 
did not institute further inquiries on the subject. 
I instructed my division news editor to run a 
good account of it as it was of great importance 
to the entire state. 

The following morning every newspaper in 
Philadelphia, and of course every other daily 
outside, gave under big headlines the informa- 
tion that the people would be given forty-eight 
hours in which to report the amount of flour in 
their possession. It was the biggest item that had 

45 



come out of the administration for months. In 
the vernacular of the news room, the papers 
"ate it up/' The vital point in it, however, 
was not that the flour survey was to be made 
but that it was to be completed within forty-eight 
hours. 

When Howard Heinz reached his office the 
ensuing morning there were stacks of telegrams 
and memoranda and half a dozen long-distance 
telephone calls waiting him. County adminis- 
trators over the state were wiring and telephoning 
inquiries and protests, particularly the latter: 
there were no blank forms prepared; it would 
be impossible to reach remote districts and notify 
the people before the time limit would expire; 
it couldn't be done, etc. 

Consternation reigned at headquarters. Every- 
body was in a flutter over the unexpected an- 
nouncement. Just before the council met I walked 
into Mr. Heinz's office. He was standing at his 
desk with copies of the Philadelphia newspapers 
spread before him. I had not been apprised up 
to that moment that there was anything wrong 
about the story. The administrator met me with 
an embarrassed smile as he remarked: 

"Well, you certainly did put one over on us this 
morning. 

"I don't quite understand," I replied non- 
plussed. 

"I refer to the story about the flour survey 
and the time limit of forty-eight hours." 

46 



"But wasn't it agreed upon yesterday that 
forty-eight hours was to be the Hmit? I distinctly 
heard you remark to Mr. Hepburn and Mr. 
Cooke that you would give the people forty-eight 
hours of grace and that all reports would have 
to be in by that time." 

"So I did/' replied Mr. Heinz, "but we had 
decided a week ago that we would first give the 
people a week or ten days and if their reports were 
not all in at the end of that time that we would 
give them an additional forty-eight hours of 
grace." 

It is unnecessary to carry the details of the 
incident any further except to say that in their 
courteous way my fellow members of the council 
appreciated the embarrassment of my position. 
The next great question was what was to be done 
under the circumstances? Howard Heinz solved 
the question instantly and emphatically: "We'll 
put it through in forty-eight hours. This office 
must not permit the impression to go abroad 
that we make rulings that it cannot put across." 

Fortunately, the forty-eight hours did not expire 
until midnight on Sunday. Sunday was omitted 
from the count and the announcement wired over 
the state that the expiration of the time would 
not, therefore, be reckoned until Monday night, 
thus adding an additional day. And so it was 
"put across." 

This debacle was of ultimate benefit to the 
administration. It demonstrated the strength of 

47 



the organization throughout the state; its ability 
to carry through anything absolutely necessary. 
The survey was a success and inspired a confi- 
dence at headquarters and in county administra- 
tion circles that was never eradicated. 



48 



CHAPTER IV 

HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 

How Lewis S. Sadler Helped and the Influ- 
enza Hindered the Administration 
Work — As to Expenses. 

To Lewis S. Sadler, of Carlisle, more than to 
any other official not an active member of the 
Food Administration, during the war period, is 
due the credit for sustaining the work of the 
administration in Pennsylvania. Upon the organi- 
zation of the Committee of Public Safety with 
George Wharton Pepper as chairman, Lewis S. 
Sadler, banker and leading citizen of Cumberland 
County, was appointed Executive Manager of that 
important body. Mr. Sadler was of an old and 
widely known family in South-central Pennsyl- 
vania. A family distinguished in law and finance. 
Upon him from beginning to end of the work of the 
Committee of Public Safety, and later the Council 
of National Defense, devolved at first hand the 
question of the distribution and use of the millions 
which the legislature had placed at the disposal of 
the committee. It was largely upon the careful 
investigation and subsequently formed judgment 
of Mr. Sadler that the officials and members of 

49 



the committee depended for the inteUigent and 
effective disposition of this fund. 

Very early in its operation it became evident 
that the Department of Food Supply of the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety would demand a consider- 
able share of the appropriation. This was clearly 
foreshadowed to Mr. Sadler, as he was a member of 
the Volunteer Advisory Committee of Sixteen 
appointed by Mr. Heinz when he assumed the 
duties of director of that department. Later, when 
the Federal Food Administration in Pennsylvania 
was organized, with Howard Heinz at its head, it 
was evident that additional funds, to be supplied 
by the state, were necessary to supplement appro- 
priations from Washington if the work of the 
administration was to be successful. 

It was fortunate for Pennsylvania, as well as for 
the National Government, that it had in the person 
of Lewis S. Sadler a volunteer official whose keen 
insight into conditions and whose wide visualiza- 
tion of results to be obtained were so comprehen- 
sive. The Federal Food Administration needed 
money to carry on its work. The Committee of 
Public Safety and Council of National Defense 
accepting at all times the judgment of Mr. Sadler 
supplied much of that money. Constantly in 
touch with Food Administrator Heinz, Mr. Sadler 
was enabled intelligently to direct the expenditures 
of his committee so far as the Food Administration 
was concerned. And to him particularly, as well 
as George Wharton Pepper, Esq., and the other 

50 




Lewis S. Sadler 

Executive Manager Council of National Defense for 

Pennsylvania 



members of the Committee of Public Safety to 
whom Pennsylvania looked for guidance in the 
period of the commonwealth's great stress, are the 
thanks of the Federal Food Administration in 
Pennsylvania due. 

Of the State appropriation credited to the Fed- 
eral Food Administration there were $161,906.43. 
This did not include $11,188.70 for the partial 
cost of the food conservation train nor $30,- 
656.50 which was used to pay the expenses for 
office rent, stenographers, clerks, traveling, printing, 
incidentals, etc., of County Administrators. The 
expenses of the Department of Publicity of the 
Committee of Public Safety and Council of 
National Defence also included certain sums 
appropriated to publicity work of the Food 
Administration but not specifically itemized in 
the Committee's financial budget as applied to 
this purpose. 

The greatest deterrent in the work of the Food 
Administration was one that was beyond the 
prescience of man to evade. 

It was the epidemic of influenza that swept the 
country in the late summer and fall of 191 8. 
Industries were paralyzed, homes were desolated, 
and the visitation amounted to a plague. In other 
centuries, gauged by the number of fatalities, the 
widespread character of the visitation and par- 
alysis of human activities, this scourge of influenza 
would have become historically famous as a pesti- 
lence. State-wide movements in food conservation 

51 



were held up. There was scarcely a county admin- 
istrator whose force was not crippled. At adminis- 
tration headquarters in Philadelphia at one period 
of the epidemic, but forty per cent of the clerical 
force was on duty; for several days only fifty 
per cent were at their desks. 

Hundreds of meetings were postponed; the 
hog census in many counties was abandoned, and 
the work of women deputies and women's organ- 
izations was for a time discontinued. Co-operation 
of pupils in the public schools, a powerful auxiliary, 
was given over, the schools were closed and the 
pupils compelled to remain at home. Yet, in spite 
of all this, the organization was maintained through 
the increased effort of those who escaped infection 
or survived the attack. 

There was one feature of headquarters routine 
which, in many ways of advantage to the staffs, 
was abandoned in the early days of 191 8 in defer- 
ence to narrow but unpublished criticism. It was 
the mid-day conference or luncheon. 

Its origin was not, as some of its critics asserted, 
an effort to make a social function out of a serious 
war activity. While the Pennsylvania administra- 
tion abolished the mid-day luncheon, Washington 
headquarters, until after the armistice was signed, 
maintained in its cafeterias, day after day, a 
luncheon where chiefs of division and heads of 
co-ordinate departments met at the table and 
discussed matters pertinent to their work. 

At Philadelphia headquarters, as the work of the 

52 



administration widened, the number of visitors, 
county administrators, seekers after information, 
and business men from various parts of the state, 
grew to an extent that threatened to interfere with 
the orderly processes of the work. It was therefore 
deemed necessary for the chiefs of division to have 
luncheon together daily where they could meet 
important visitors, county administrators, and 
exchange views. These were first held in the 
Arcadia Cafe but were subsequently transferred 
to a quiet salon of the Wanamaker Tea Room. 
Each individual paid a fixed price for his luncheon 
to an office clerk at the door. Newspaper reporters 
were invited to sit at the table and without excep- 
tion every newspaper in Philadelphia detailed a 
member of its staff for this particular assignment. 
But gradually the voice of criticism, principally 
in counties not directly in touch with Philadelphia, 
was heard. It was inspired mainly by the inter- 
esting accounts in the newspapers of what was said 
at these affairs. The comments, without excep- 
tion, were based on a false impression, viz., that the 
government, or rather the Food Administration, 
was footing the bills, and that they were little less 
than a gastronomic orgie; that it was a "high- 
brow" realization of a theory peculiar to Phila- 
delphia that no movement of public benefit could 
be inaugurated without a luncheon "to talk it 
over." The reverse was true. The object of these 
gatherings was to give department heads an oppor- 
tunity to utilize the noon hour to advantage; 

53 



every fellow paid for his own meals, and, instead 
of a feast that violated all Hooverian rules, the 
participants frequently protested good naturedly 
at the restricted menu. The misconception was 
voiced by a Montgomery County man who said: 

"What's this Food Administration outfit any- 
how? What're you running there in Philadelphia, 
a pink tea or a cabaret? Is it a social function or a 
government enterprise? Seems 's if you couldn't 
do anything without having a feed of some kind." 

It was just such criticism that led to the aban- 
donment of the daily luncheon. At the end of the 
first month instead of the noon hour being con- 
sumed in an exchange of ideas between division 
chiefs the time dragged to an hour and a half. 
As the work of the administration increased by 
leaps and bounds, members in increasing numbers 
found it impossible to attend. The frequent 
unavoidable absences of Mr. Heinz on official 
business, who acted as chairman, or of Vice- 
Administrator Crutchfield, or Mr. Cooke as his 
representative, led to more or less desultory cross 
fire of good-natured badinage which had nothing 
in common with administration business. 

Then, too, some of the speakers wandered far 
afield and consumed unnecessary time. The news- 
paper men quick to detect a flagging interest, 
dearth of news, or diminishing momentum of pur- 
pose, began absenting themselves. The end came 
swiftly, and the noon-day luncheon of the head- 
quarters staff soon became a memory. The final 

54 



one was held in the latter part of March, 1918, and 
in the swift rush of events in the succeeding 
months few members of the headquarter staff 
exceeded half an hour for their mid-day meal at a 
neighboring club or cafe. 

There was constant irritation between Pennsyl- 
vania headquarters and county administrators, 
and the auditing division of the Food Admin- 
istration in Washington. The trouble was either 
an exaggerated idea of self-importance on someone's 
part in the Bureau of Audits, which handled the 
expense accounts, or a matter of red tape that at 
times threatened to wreck the efficiency of certain 
work in the Pennsylvania administration. It is 
not here stated as a fact, but there was a legend 
that the chief of a certain division having to do 
with auditing expenditures was a country school 
master suddenly elevated to a Washington position 
where his efficiency could not rise above the point 
of questioning the expenditure of two cents for a 
war tax by a Pennsylvania administrator. Delay 
was chronic ; weeks and months elapsed ere any 
reply would be received to statements of expenses 
filed for payment. 



55 



CHAPTER V 

AND PENNSYLVANIA LED. 

Origin of the Nation-wide Red Cross Penal- 
ty, THE Unfair Order, and the 
Loose Leaf System. 

While this story of the Food Administration's 
work in Pennsylvania is unofficial and, in the 
alliterative and epigrammatic words of my neigh- 
bor, the late Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker, is 
"unaltered-unedited-unexpurgated'' it also repre- 
sents a desire, as far as possible, to disregard in the 
interest of free narration, documentary evidence 
and uninteresting details. The statement that 
this state led all others in administration work is, 
therefore, an observation based upon high official 
admission and evidence of the fact. 

It will be a matter of surprise to many who read 
these pages to learn that three of the most impor- 
tant things which had to do with the enforcement 
of National Food Administration laws were origi- 
nated by Chas. J. Hepburn, Esq., chief counsel for 
Pennsylvania. They were not only endorsed by 
Washington but subsequently, by Washington's 
direction, put in effect throughout the Union. 

In the beginning of its work it was essential to 

56 



John T. Nauman, Esq. 
Associate Counsel 




Henry Pepper Norris, Esq. 
Associate Counsel 



public confidence in the administration that its 
chief counsel, whose duty it was to codify and 
interpret the laws, should hold high professional 
station. It was incidentally advantageous perhaps 
that he come of a family of lawyers. Charles J. 
Hepburn was of a race of lawyers for four genera- 
tions and of blood that had graced the Supreme 
Bench. His father was the leading member of the 
Bar in Cumberland County; his grandfather was 
president judge of the Ninth District and further 
back in the family, Charles Huston sat on the 
Supreme Bench of the state. 

On the walls of Hepburn's private office are 
four portraits, with one exception, of the obsolete 
style in which the sitters, wearing coats of ancient 
fashion with wide lapels, gaze forth from the up- 
standing glory of voluminous collars and ample 
cravats, with hair carefully rolled and parted like 
those encountered in steel engravings of the last 
quarter of the eighteenth and the first decade 
of the nineteenth century. This quartette repre- 
sents four generations of his family, and Charles J., 
"Charlie" to his intimates, in the presence of this 
imposing array of legal ancestry, hides his own 
photographic personality in a mahogany frame 
behind a corner of a bookcase to the left of his 
office chair. 

It would have been contrary to the accepted 
decrees of fate if Hepburn had been anything but 
a lawyer. It would have been opposed to all 
accepted ideas of the inheritance of intellect if he, 

57 



the descendant of a line of jurists, had not become 
one himself. Had circumstance or environment 
tangled the lines he doubtless would have been 
equally prominent in some other of the learned 
professions or in business life. 

The "unfair order" of the National Food 
Administration was the means through which the 
administration reached out and controlled the 
non-licensed retail dealer who persisted in dis- 
regarding the food laws of the country. It was 
devised by Mr. Hepburn for the purpose of han- 
dling the cases of three non-licensed retail grocers 
in Pittsburgh who were found guilty of gross prof- 
iteering in sugar in October and November, 1917, 
and its first mention occurred in a letter from the 
chief counsel for Pennsylvania to R. W. Boyden, 
ex-director of the Division of Enforcement of the 
National Administration at Washington under 
date of December 17, 1917. Its history briefly is 
as follows: 

Under section five of the Federal Food Control 
act of August 10, 1917, the President was author- 
ized to prescribe the licensing of any person en- 
gaged in the "importation, manufacture, storage, 
mining or distribution of any necessaries,'' which 
included all licensed food commodities ; but it was 
specifically provided that this section should not 
apply "to any retailer with respect to the retail 
business actually conducted by him," and a re- 
tailer was defined as one "not engaged in the 
wholesale business and whose gross sales do not 

58 




Jay Cooke 
Food Administrator for Philadelphia 



exceed $100,000 per annum." Under this pro- 
vision retail grocers doing a business of less than 
$100,000, and these constitute probably ninety 
per cent of the entire trade, were apparently put 
beyond the reach of the Food Administration in 
the enforcement of its rules and policies. 

The State of New York shortly after the organi- 
zation of its Federal Food Administration, recog- 
nizing the necessity for controlling retail dealers 
not provided for in the National Food act, took 
immediate steps to remedy this deficiency. It 
passed a State Food Commission act for the 
appointment of a state commission that should 
control the small retailer and the restaurants. In 
November the Federal Food Administration and 
the members of this newly created State Food 
Commission entered into an agreement for the 
appointment of a "Federal Food Board for New 
York State." It was to consist of the three com- 
missioners appointed under the state act and two 
federal administrators; one for New York City 
the other for the state outside. In this agreement 
was written the definite statement that, "the 
State Food Commission possesses much wider 
authority over retail distribution — ^which is not 
possessed by the Federal Administration." By 
this action, a combination of state and federal 
food authority. New York was enabled to control 
its retailers and restaurants in a manner not 
possible in Pennsylvania and the other common- 
wealths. New York had absolute control over the 

39 



corner grocery and the popular price restaurant; 
Pennsylvania had not. 

In the latter part of November, 19 17, shortly 
after Mr. Hepburn's appointment as chief counsel 
for Pennsylvania, the cases of three non-licensed 
retailers doing business in Pittsburgh, viz., Sam 
Gelman, B. Block and M. Schapiro, were brought 
to his attention. This trio had taken advantage 
of the sugar shortage to extort excessive profits 
in the sale of that commodity. It was about this 
time that Washington promulgated its first set 
of rules and regulations, general rule seventeen of 
which provided, that no licensee should knowingly 
sell commodities to any person who should violate 
the provision of the Federal Control act. This 
was the point at which the Hepburn "unfair 
order" came into existence. He suggested to 
Washington that these men be reached by a pro- 
cess which was nothing more than a notice to all 
licensees, which included wholesalers, that the 
three individuals named had been found guilty of 
"unfair and improper practices," and therefore 
licensees who dealt or traded with them, until 
further notice from the Food Administration, did 
so at the risk of having their respective licenses 
withdrawn. After a full hearing in each case an 
"unfair order" as described was issued; the first 
of record in the United States. 

The dealer Gelman proved recalcitrant and 
refused to abide by the order of the administration. 
He declared that he cared little or nothing what 

60 



became of his retail grocery business. He was 
conducting, however, a flourishing retail fish 
business at the same locaHty, and shortly after the 
issuance of the "unfair order" he found it im- 
possible to purchase a pound of fish or other com- 
modity in the United States. Washington shortly 
thereafter circularized all state administrators 
directing their attention to this case and the 
eflScacy of the process described. The Pennsyl- 
vania administration thus not only discovered a 
way to enforce the observance of the law upon 
every dealer in food commodities, licensed or un- 
licensed, but opened a way for other states to 
reach and control unprincipled and unpatriotic 
retail dealers. 

"The Red Cross Penalty," adopted by the Fed- 
eral Food Administration throughout the United 
States poured into the treasury of a great humani- 
tarian organization, a continuous flow of coin 
from the pockets of profiteers, perjurers, and all 
the riff-raff, the un-American pro-Hun element, of 
the population. Pennsylvania dropped the first 
dollars; they were followed by a steady stream 
that mounted into the hundreds of thousands. 
The origin of the "Red Cross Penalty" was a 
Hepburn inspiration — its result a blessing. 

The first "Red Cross Penalty," so far as known, 
in the United States was imposed in the case of the 
three Pittsburgh profiteers. This is the story: 

" Sam Gelman, one of the trio of profiteers, had 
made an excessive profit of about $i,8oo off one 

61 



restaurateur in Pittsburgh. The latter, it was 
found, was entitled to no sympathy whatever as 
he had instigated, on the part of Gelman, the viola- 
tion of the law and he was regarded as particeps 
criminis. In the interest of justice it was decided 
that this man should not be permitted to benefit 
by the transaction and that Gelman should not, 
therefore, be required to return his excessive profits 
to him. At the same time Hepburn, who had 
given his personal attention to the case, decided 
that Gelman should not be permitted to retain 
the sums he had thus gained. He decided that the 
profiteer should be penalized by being required to 
turn his $i,8oo illicit profits over to the Red Cross, 
which was done with full approval of his action by 
the authorities at Washington. This was the first 
instance of its kind, so far as there is any record 
of the imposition of a red cross penalty; the 
use for the first time, of that subsequently widely 
known and beneficent phrase, "Red Cross Pen- 
alty." The National Administration seized upon 
it as a precedent worthy of nation-wide adoption 
and its success was instantly assured. 

While seemingly of secondary importance the 
introduction of what ultimately came to be known 
as the "Loose Leaf System," was in reality a 
most important step in the direction of facili- 
tating the work and lightening the labors of the 
legal department; indeed of every department 
in which it was imperative that a perfect file of 
rules, amendments, modifications, interpretations 

62 



and classifications be kept for instant reference. 
In the beginning each division had simply a mass 
of mimeographed material from Washington, with 
various printed circulars and pamphlets, in which 
were embodied all the rules and regulations issued 
from time to time at national headquarters. Of 
vital importance in the conduct of affairs so rapidly 
did this material accumulate that it was impossible 
to say just what the regulations were at any 
particular moment. 

At this point F. Marcoe Rivinus, Esq., was ap- 
pointed associate counsel with the primary pur- 
pose of bringing order out of this chaos and of 
getting the regulations, with all rescissions and 
amendments, in such shape as would permit of 
ready reference at a moment's notice. After weeks 
of labor, for the flood of communications was 
mounting higher with each succeeding day, Mr. 
Rivinus designed and developed a *' Loose Leaf 
System" for instant reference. The original 
design was to have it printed and put in force in 
Pennsylvania for the information and guidance of 
the headquarters staff and county administrators, 
but the success of the Rivinus system proved to 
be of such value that Chief Counsel Hepburn 
suggested to Washington that it was worthy of 
general adoption in administration offices through- 
out the country. Washington instantly approved 
of the suggestion and Mr. Rivinus spent some time 
in Washington working out its development as 
applicable to the entire food administration 

63 



system in the country. The end of the world war 
will undoubtedly see the adoption of the Rivinus 
system in the country. 

The personnel of the legal division was unusu- 
ally high. John A. Nauman, Esq., of associate 
counsel, was one of the best known members of 
the Lancaster bar; the leader in fact of the junior 
bar. He specialized in administration work par- 
ticularly in inter-state complaints with reference 
to rejected consignment cases. Although a resident 
of Lancaster he spent several days each week at 
Philadelphia headquarters besides devoting a great 
deal of his time to food work at his own office in 
Lancaster. Hearings, and like matters requiring 
the presence of witnesses, were conducted by him 
at the Philadelphia office. A lawyer of large 
experience he was a distinct acquisition to the 
legal division of the administration. 

Henry Pepper Norris, Esq., associate counsel, 
curtailed his private practice during a large part of 
the war period that he might devote practically 
his entire time to food work at headquarters. A 
gentleman of fine legal attainments and high char- 
acter, his services were particularly valuable from 
the fact that he specialized in milling regulations 
and mill feed prices, matters which were of vital 
interest to the entire farming population of the 
state particularly at a time when these necessities 
were curtailed by a congestion of railroad traffic 
in the spring and summer of 191 8. The great 
majority of all such cases that reached head- 

64 



Ralph Chambers Stewart 
Associate Counsel 




F. Markoe Rivinus, Esq 
Associate Counse 



quarters passed through his hands. Courteous and 
unassuming he discharged the exacting duties 
entrusted to his care to the complete satisfaction 
of the authorities of the Washington and Pennsyl- 
vania headquarters. 

Stacy B. Lloyd, Esq., was one of the two mem- 
bers of the administration force who early resigned 
to enter the Judge Advocate's Department of the 
U. S. Army. The division, while recognizing the 
patriotic spirit which prompted him to take the 
step, parted with him with great regret. His place 
was ably filled by Reynolds D. Brown, Esq., who 
continued to the end of the administration as a 
member of the legal staff. 

In the summer of 191 8 it became increasingly 
evident that the Philadelphia administration in 
its various ramifications required, practically, the 
exclusive services of a member of the legal staff. 

Ralph Chambers Stewart, Esq., associate coun- 
sel, was detailed for this work, and with the excep- 
tion of the Philadelphia hearings for violations of 
the food laws, which from the beginning were in 
charge of William Barclay Lex, Esq., he retained 
this as his distinctive field to the close of the 
administration's activities. Although he was 
particularly engaged in disentangling vexed legal 
questions connected with the sugar division, yet 
his services at all times were available to Adminis- 
trator Cooke in other matters connected with the 
Philadelphia office. 

One of the younger members of the division Mr. 

65 



Stewart brought to his task an experience of 
seventeen years as a member of the Philadelphia 
bar, combined with an agreeable personality and 
a wide acquaintance. It was his duty as a member 
of the administration's legal staff to lighten as 
far as possible the strain on the other members by 
localizing a portion of the work, thus enabling his 
associates to devote greater attention to the state 
at large. And this duty was performed by him to 
the eminent satisfaction of the chief counsel and 
the credit of the administration. He was one of 
the three members of the staff who was active until 
the close of the administration's work in February, 
1919. 



66 



CHAPTER VI 

IN PHILADELPHIA. 

The Appointment of Jay Cooke as Federal 

Food Administrator — ^A Threatened 

Coal and Ice Shortage Averted. 

The selection of a food ad-ministrator for the 
city and county of Philadelphia was one of the 
most delicate and important tasks that confronted 
State Administrator Heinz. Delicate, because it 
demanded a man who could command the con- 
fidence of the people of all classes, and important 
because in his hands would be placed every ques- 
tion concerning food supply, distribution, and 
regulation for the third greatest city in the country. 
The man who accepted the position would not only 
be required to assume command of a small army 
of assistants, departmental directors, and bureau 
heads with correspondingly large clerical forces, 
but he must devote his entire time to the work 
in addition to being physically and financially 
able to stand the strain that such a sacrifice 
involved. Half a dozen names were suggested 
for the place — ^worthy and prominent names, but 
for some reason they were not available; were 
wanting in some essential quality necessary to 
success. 

67 



Then the name of Jay Cooke was put forward. 
The fitness of the man for the place was recognized 
instantly. He had the business qualifications, the 
clearness of judgment, and the resourcefulness; 
above all, he held the confidence of the people. 
He came of a line of ancestors who had fought the 
battles of the republic in the fields of finance in 
other years. 

It is unnecessary to elaborate upon the details 
of Jay Cooke's selection. He was diffident about 
assuming so great a responsibility; there was a 
modest depreciation of his own ability. He insisted 
upon a week or ten days in which to consider the 
matter. In the meantime he went off shooting in 
the solitudes of the duck islands along the Carolina 
coast; also to think it over. When he got back 
home he found that his appointment had already 
been announced. Howard Heinz was taking no 
chances. 

It was one of the most fortunate and thoroughly 
satisfactory appointments in the history of the 
Pennsylvania Food Administration. It not only 
placed at the head of affairs in Philadelphia a man 
thoroughly equipped for the position, but it added 
an element of strength to the Executive Council. 
Jay Cooke was one of the trio of assistants who 
were Howard Heinz' staunchest friends and ablest 
councillors; J. S. Crutchfield and Charles J. 
Hepburn being the others. To this coterie should 
be added that unofficial guide, philosopher, and 
friend, L. S. Dow, of Pittsburgh, one of the few 

68 



men I have ever known who could grasp the saHent 
points of a situation with a celerity that almost 
amounted to intuition. 

In a crisis the cool judgment and directness of 
purpose of Cooke never faltered. A conspicuous 
instance was the flour substitute or 50-50 ruling. 
Washington was uncertain as to the effect upon 
the public of promulgating a drastic order that 
50 per cent of substitutes in the way of cereals 
must be used with wheat flour. The matter had 
been debated in the Executive Council in Phila- 
delphia and it was reluctantly decided to await 
final instructions from Washington. In the mean- 
time a regular meeting of Cooke's Retail Grocers' 
Advisory Committee was held at headquarters. 
Mr. Heinz was absent in another part of the state. 
The 50-50 question was brought up for discussion 
at the meeting. The imperative necessity for some 
action, however drastic, was presented by Mr. 
Cooke. His direct and forceful presentation of the 
facts won the merchants to his way of thinking and 
it was unanimously decided that Philadelphia 
should set the example not only to Pennsylvania 
but to the country by inaugurating this almost 
revolutionary movement. 

The following day on his return to Philadelphia 
Howard Heinz was acquainted with the decision 
of the Philadelphia grocers. It was an agreeable 
surprise, although it was an experiment that 
threatened difficulty throughout the state. He 
accepted the action as a good omen of success and 

69 



proceeded instantly to put it in force throughout 
the state. His promptness not only placed Penn- 
sylvania at the head of commonwealths ready to 
sacrifice for the common weal, but afforded Wash- 
ington the occasion to make a similar rule that was 
nation wide. 

The 50-50 rule was not put over in this state 
without vigorous protest. It was generally 
accepted as a necessary sacrifice to the winning 
of the war, but there were two or three mining 
districts in the anthracite regions where direct 
threats were made by the miners that unless they 
were permitted to have wheat bread without a 
mixture of substitutes coal mining in the district 
would cease. 

The day this news was received was the most 
strenuous and busiest the headquarters in Phila- 
delphia ever knew, although the world at large, 
and visitors, were unconscious that anything 
beyond the ordinary was taking place. All day 
and far into the night the long distance telephone 
wires were kept busy with conferences and orders. 

Vice-Administrator Crutchfield took personal 
charge of the matter. Meetings were hurriedly or- 
ganized in the disaffected districts, house to house 
visits were ordered by administration officials, and 
within forty-eight hours the miners had accepted 
the dictum of the government and patriotically 
decided to continue at work no matter what 
happened. 

The crisis had been precipitated largely through 

70 



ignorance and thoughtlessness. Crutchfield in- 
formed me subsequently that the long distance 
telephone bills for that day alone exceeded one 
thousand dollars. 

The greatest service that Jay Cooke rendered 
Philadelphia and the state, in a specific instance, 
was his successful handling of the ice crisis in the 
summer of 191 8. The situation was precipitated 
by a natural ice shortage throughout the state, by 
inadequate transportation facilities, the lack of 
help at ice manufacturing establishments, and the 
increased cost of everything pertaining to its pro- 
duction. This combination of circumstances 
threatened not only greatly increased prices for 
ice but danger of an actual famine. 

In the latter part of July, 19 18, Jay Cooke 
called into conference the leading ice manufacturers 
and producers of Philadelphia as well as representa- 
tives of the retail trade. He invited their co-opera- 
tion in maintaining a fixed and reasonable price 
for ice, in the prevention of waste, and oppor- 
tunity for the widest distribution of ice in the 
poorer sections of the city. 

On the loth of August following, these rules 
were promulgated: 

(i) Saloons must curtail their use of ice to 25 
per cent of normal. (2) Hotels, restaurants, clubs 
and all public eating places must cease serving 
crushed ice on fruits, sea foods, salads, celery, 
tomatoes, etc. (3) A reduction in the use of ice 
by ice cream manufacturers and dispensers of soft 

71 



drinks must be effected ; they must practice strict 
economy, or their supply will be cut down. (4) 
Every economy in the use of ice by commercial 
users must be practiced. 

A feature of the situation on which Mr. Cooke 
insisted was the close co-operation between con- 
sumers and ice dealers in observing the rules of 
the administration. The food administrator held 
the whip hand but never once was he compelled 
to resort to drastic measures. 

The Philadelphia method of handling the ice 
situation inaugurated by Jay Cooke was adopted 
generally throughout the state. In large cities and 
towns close co-operation was effected between 
dealers and consumers and what otherwise would 
have developed into a perplexing and serious condi- 
tion was thus happily averted. 

Seventy-nine cash and carry ice stations were 
established in Philadelphia by the administration. 
In this manner the ice supply was made to reach 
thousands of families that otherwise would have 
been deprived of it. In one day in August fifty 
thousand families were supplied from these sta- 
tions. The work was in the hands of J. P. Richard- 
son, a gentleman familiar with the problem of 
distribution, and his work under the direction of 
Administrator Cooke was both competent and 
effective. An official report on the subject fur- 
nishes the following facts : 

An agreement entered into by thirty-five ice 
dealers and the food administration made it 

72 



possible to regulate the price of ice, which remained 
the same throughout the summer of 191 8. The 
schedule of prices made possible by the earnest 
co-operation of these thirty-five ice dealers was as 
follows : 

Wholesale platform price to retail dealers, ^5 
per ton of 2,000 pounds. Retail platform price 
on cash and carry basis, 15 pounds for j cents, 
30 pounds for 10 cents. Retail prices to house- 
holders at rate of 60 cents per 100 pounds for any 
amount delivered. On tickets issued by the food 
administrator, through certain organized stations 
to worthy poor people, at rate of 5 cents for 15 
pounds, and 10 cents for 30 pounds at platforms 
or special stations. 

Jay Cooke, himself a financier, came of a race 
of financiers. In the early part of the nineteenth 
century the family, originally of New England, 
removed to Sandusky, Ohio. It was here the first 
Jay Cooke was born — the man who financed the 
Union cause during the Civil War, just as Robert 
Morris had financed the colonies in the Revolution. 
The banking house of Jay Cooke was founded in 
Philadelphia in the 50's, and was the representa- 
tive banking concern of Philadelphia for half a 
century. Ogontz, the beautiful residence of the 
first Jay Cooke, was, and is today, the finest 
demesne in the vicinity of Philadelphia. 

The father of Jay Cooke, the food administrator, 
inherited the banking establishment as well as 
business acumen of the war financier, and these in 

73 



turn were transmitted to Jay Cooke, 3d. Of late 
years Mr. Cooke has devoted his time to private 
financial interests. For the period of the war, 
and while food administrator for Philadelphia, his 
personal affairs were relegated to the background; 
placed in the hands of business associates while he 
devoted himself exclusively to the affairs of his 
state. His only son. Jay Cooke, 4th, entered the 
United States service, was gassed at the front, 
and returned a captain on the staff of General 
Kuhn, U. S. A. 

The finest memory I have of Jay Cooke goes 
back to the historic morning of the i ith of Novem- 
ber, 191 8, when with face aglow with patriotic 
enthusiasm he grasped me by the hand with the 
words: 

"I congratulate you this morning upon being 
an American citizen." 



74 



CHAPTER VII 
SECRET SERVICE AND COURT. 

How THE ViOLATERS OF FoOD LaWS WERE CaUGHT, 

AND How They were Punished in an 
Unique Court. 

In rural counties the necessity for large forces of 
investigators to inquire into violations of the food 
laws was not apparent. In Philadelphia, third 
largest city in the country, the administration 
found a different condition. The thousands of 
retail grocers, bakers, butchers and delicatessen 
shops, apart from a great foreign population, 
necessitated the organization of a large, effective, 
and devoted staff of inspectors. 

The work was carried on in the beginning in 
rather desultory fashion with two or three volun- 
teers. It became apparent to Howard Heinz and 
Jay Cooke that the effective organization of a 
large staff was imperative. Under the invariable 
rule of the administration the chief of a division 
must be a volunteer, working without compensa- 
tion, and devoting his entire time to his duties. 
The man selected and preeminently qualified for 
the work was Captain Robert Sewell, a retired 
officer of the United States Regular Army; a man 

75 



accustomed to command and whose experience 
and loyalty were a guarantee of thoroughness and 
unflagging zeal. 

Captain Sewell well merited the appellation of 
an ''up-standing man." Of magnificent physique, 
of affable personality and great self-control, he 
inspired both confidence and respect among the 
members of his staff. With an air of quiet 
authority he combined an unfailing courtesy and 
unwearied energy that produced every result 
hoped for by Administrator Cooke. His rule was 
absolute in the matter of investigation, the final 
determination of guilt or innocence of the investi- 
gated being, however, a matter to be determined 
by the division of enforcements, otherwise, the 
Legal Department in which J. B. Lex, Esq., was 
Examiner, with final revision by Chief Counsel 
Hepburn. 

The Division of Investigation was the secret 
service of the Philadelphia administration. Its 
organization was after the manner of the govern- 
ment's secret service and was characterized by the 
same silent, effective, confidential methods. 

The experiences of some of Captain SewelFs 
investigators detailed to inquire into violations of 
the law by bakers of a certain class were prolific 
of thrilling episodes and the element of personal 
danger. A Jew baker, incidentally an ''advanced" 
Socialist, in West Philadelphia, had been closed by 
the administration for defiance of the law and 
two men of Sewell's staff were detailed to discover 

76 



if he was running in violation of the closing order. 
The fellow had made threats against administra- 
tion officials, and, on this occasion, a third man 
was detailed with the others as a safety precaution. 
A policeman also accompanied them to the place. 

The man was working as usual. As described 
by one of the party, "'the Bolshevist greeted us 
with a flourish of bread knives and a shower of 
dough balls." The attack failed of effect. He 
then ordered the party from the place threatening 
to "do" each one of them. The investigators 
withdrew and returned to headquarters with 
material for a case in the United States District 
Court. A hearing was held on this latest violation 
and the closing period extended to sixty days. 
This infuriated the baker to a still greater degree. 
A day or so after, and oddly at a moment when 
his case was under discussion, the fellow appeared 
suddenly in the office. The investigator now 
speaks : 

"He presented a true picture of a Bolshevist. 
He wore a cap, plaid reefer overcoat, corduroy 
trousers evidently homemade, and high leather 
boots. His side pockets were bulging as though 
filled with bombs. From his cap to his boots his 
clothing was powdered with flour and smeared with 
soft dough, while the look on his face was such 
that one of the girl stenographers left her desk 
and hurried from the room. He was unkempt 
and ferocious and his appearance suggested a 
cartoon of Trotsky. He made short tiptoe paces 

77 



toward one of the staff working on his case and 
inquired : 

"^Why was I closed?' 

** 'Go to the Legal Department and find out,' 
was the reply. 

'*'ril get you yet,' rejoined the baker as he 
backed from the room. 

"A few days later he again appeared filled to 
the tonsils with liquor and insisted on asking a 
lot of irrelevent questions. He was again directed 
to see Attorney Lex of the Legal Department who 
handled such cases. He declined to leave and at 
last I took him by the arm and conducted him to 
Mr. Lex's office. Then the fireworks started. He 
raved, swore, threatened, and vowed that he would 
'get even' with everybody around the place. I 
succeeded in ridding the office of his uncleanly and 
disgusting presence by displaying a badge and 
threatening to take him down to the postoffice 
building and hand him over to the United 
States Department of Justice. The badge was a 
nickel medal presented to me by the Belgian 
Relief Committee. It was in the shape of a key- 
stone and resembled those worn by secret service 
operatives. The fellow made a dash for the door 
and we never saw him after, though his case was 
subsequently taken up, I believe, by the United 
States District Attorney." 

During the sugar conservation and confiscation 
period an investigator on Walnut Street had his 
attention directed to the peculiar gait of a woman 

78 



who had manifest difficulty in making her way 
along the street. The suspicions of the investi- 
gator were aroused as the woman, of ordinary 
appearance, had emerged from the servants' 
quarters of the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. He 
accosted her and her embarrassment and confusion 
were so manifest that he compelled her to return 
with him to the hotel. There an examination was 
made and it was found that the woman's difficulty 
in walking was due to the fact that she had con- 
cealed about twenty pounds of sugar in packages 
in her stockings which she had surreptitiously ob- 
tained from the hotel's stores. Her detection in 
this matter led to further revelations concerning 
the whereabouts of missing silverware belonging 
to the hotel. 

There were over one hundred investigators 
serving as volunteers at one time under Captain 
Sewell. With one or two exceptions they were men 
beyond the draft age, or who had been rejected, 
or in the lower classifications of the draft 
were waiting to be conscripted, but who, in the 
meantime, were desirous of aiding their country 
until their call came. Many of them worked 
during the day and served the administration a 
part of the night; others devoted part of the 
business day to the service, while a few obtained 
the permission of employers or business associates 
to give two or three days a week. The remaining 
members of the staff were gentlemen who had 

79 



retired from active business and could devote their 
entire time to the work. 

While the force was yet comparatively small the 
necessary delay in going from one part of the city 
to another in trolleys greatly hampered investiga- 
tion. An appeal was made to automobile owners, 
through the Philadelphia newspapers, asking that 
they place their cars at the disposal of the Division 
of Investigation during certain hours of the day, 
or for several days in the week wherever possible. 
This greatly facilitated for a time the work of 
the division. Later, another newspaper appeal 
was made for more investigators, and the response 
to this was so generous that a number necessary 
to perform all the work of the division was quickly 
secured. 

No man was accepted for this responsible posi- 
tion without ample reference as to his character 
and unimpeachable testimony as to his patriotism. 
Although few of the investigators knew it at the 
time their life records were carefully sifted, in 
many instances by United States Secret Service 
men. 

With one exception every man demonstrated 
his honesty, patriotism, and fearlessness and 
justified the trust reposed in him. The individual 
who betrayed his office came from another state 
with highly laudatory letters and commendations 
from state officials of national prominence. As 
was subsequently proved the writers of these had 
known the man in earlier years and were ignorant 

80 



of the fact that he had a later record that was 
objectionable if not criminal. His betrayal of his 
trust got no further than the attempted acceptance 
of a bribe, for he was apprehended by secret 
service men who were on his trail with the marked 
money in his possession. To the evil-intentioned 
or the weak, there were daily opportunities in the 
processes of the administration to betray the gov- 
ernment. In one or two instances offers of bribes 
were openly made; in others discreetly veiled 
suggestions of a monetary consideration were 
offered. 

To the Division of Law and Enforcement, as the 
Law Department was officially known, was assigned 
not only the interpretation but the enforcement of 
the law. It prescribed penalties, and for this 
purpose was compelled to maintain a tribunal 
where cases of violation of the administration's 
laws were heard and penalties imposed. 

William Barclay Lex, Esq., of the associate 
counsel, was assigned as, what properly might be 
termed, trial judge. The possessor of great tact, 
keen discernment, a fine sense of justice, and, above 
all, a judicial mind, Mr. Lex, for nearly a year, 
performed the duties of this exacting position with 
fidelity and loyalty. 

A large room was equipped with desks, facilities 
for stenographers who made complete transcripts 
of every case, and for attendant counsel on the part 
of the accused. With the exception of Sundays, 
or the temporary absence of Mr. Lex, who was 

81 



frequently called upon to preside at hearings 
throughout the eastern part of Pennsylvania, this 
"Administration Court" was in daily session. 
Frequently the long corridors outside the offices 
were crowded with attendants upon this tribunal. 
The major part the violators were of alien birth, 
and to their ignorance, not only of our language 
but of our mode of waging war on the basis of 
honor, was principally due their worries before the 
department. The native born were occasionally in 
evidence, though it is difficult to decide whether it 
was because of superior innocence, or the fact that 
they were wiser in their method of evasion and 
that they "knew how." 

"Judge" Lex, as he was invariably addressed 
by those visiting his court, was possessed of a 
keen sense of humor. A member of the Division 
of Press News desirous of preparing a "feature" 
story for the press asked Mr. Lex for some sugges- 
tions that would convey something of the " atmos- 
phere" of his court room. He instantly replied: 

"If you wish to get a correct conception of the 
atmosphere, slice an onion and hold it under your 



nose." 



Supremely indifferent to fossilized procedure, 
for these war time laws were interpreted and 
penalties inflicted under war time exigencies, the 
Judge acted not only as investigator, but also as 
prosecutor, judge, jury and sheriff in each case. 
When justice demanded it executive clemency was 
exercised. Where the evidence was conclusive and 

82 



the violater, or his counsel, took exceptions to the 
rulings of Mr. Lex, they were informed that appeal 
was their right; that the case would be transferred, 
therefore, upon their appeal, to the administration 
officials in Washington or to the United States 
Court. In not a single instance did any of the 
accused take advantage of this privilege. The 
dread of facing a more exacting tribunal in the 
case of a United States court led them to accept 
the penalty imposed by the administration's 
judicial officer. 

No division of the administration presented 
such opportunities for graft and bribery as this 
court. The character of the violators, the vast 
mass of whom were ignorant but shrewd, with a 
conception of justice and patriotism based upon 
tradition and experience in the land of their 
birth, led to not infrequent attempts to "reach 
the Judge," beginning with an obsequious "Good 
morning, Judge," and then a whispered aside, 
"FU see that the next time you come over to 
City Hall this won't be forgotten!" 

After a few weeks' experience, almost by instinct, 
Mr. Lex could divine the character of the excuse 
that was to be offered by the culprit. A failure 
to read the papers ; ignorance of the change in the 
rules from Washington; and, during the flour 
substitute period, "de baker boy he forget to 
put in de substitute." 

When the bread campaign was in progress the 
nickel restaurants accused of violation of the rule 

83 



limiting a service of two ounces of bread to each 
meal, brought with them to the hearings their own 
scales to demonstrate how inaccurate were the 
scales of administration officials who had literally 
weighed them and found them wanting in obedi- 
ence to the law. 

A conspicuously bright idea flourished on South 
Street for a time and blossomed in this adminis- 
tration court. One morning in the summer of 
191 8, a perfectly self-satisfied, ponderous, gaudily 
gowned member of the gentler sex, redolent of 
"Jockey Club" and adorned with "ice'' jewelry, 
wafted into the defendant's chair and in accents 
suggestive of the ghetto pleaded pathetically for 
her spouse, who, she said was past sixty. 

"May it please yer honor he a very sick man. 
Each morning he go to the doctor specialist and 
each week, three times, does the doctor specialist 
pump his stomach. My man he yells and howls. 
My Jake he very sick and these here substitutes 
they wrench him something fierce. Say, Judge, 
they just put him on the blink, so I lay by this 
wheat flour, just a little, please. Judge, and he can 
sufi^er less with the wheat flour in his stomach 
when he goes to the doctor specialist to be 
pumped." 

The buxom dame had only a matter of five 
barrels of wheat flour in her cellar at a time when 
the regulations called for the possession of about 
twelve pounds. Her plea could not save her from 
the penalty that was her due. 

84 



CHAPTER VIII 

FEEDING TEN MILLIONS. 

Trade Distribution and Markets — Conserva- 
tion AND How IT Worked — County 
Administration and Education. 

Five officials, three of them chiefs of division, 
each a conspicuous figure in his own walk in life, 
were returning from Washington after a conference 
with Herbert Hoover. One of the quintette was 
J. S. Crutchfield, vice-administrator for Penn- 
sylvania. The party occupied a drawing-room on 
the Express. They had been in session with the 
National Food Administrator in the course of which 
honest straightforward opinions had been expressed, 
and Howard Heinz, always combative when he 
felt he was right, had led the discussion. In the 
interchange of comment on the day's work at 
Washington, two members of the staff had expressed 
their views in vigorous and classic language; not 
the rude, unpolished, expletives of the street, but 
rather a polite invitation to the Gods of War to 
witness that they had endeavored to do their 
duty both by Hoover and by Heinz that day. 

The following afternoon on the desk of each of 
the two Philistines mysteriously appeared a little 

85 



book, bound in gray with the words in gold upon 
its back, "Daily Bible Thoughts," or words to that 
effect. Inside was an engraved card, "With the 
compliments of J. S. Crutchfield." 

The act was an index of the character of the 
vice-administrator for Pennsylvania; for J. S. 
Crutchfield was not only an eminently successful 
business man but in association with his co-workers 
in the administration he was regarded as a con- 
sistent, unostentatious Christian. Tall, some 
would say angular, a Kentuckian by birth and 
breeding, with the courtesy and geniality of the 
Southerner, he had the courage of his convictions 
at every stage of the game. 

The appointment of Crutchfield as vice-admin- 
istrator was criticised at the time, but to this day 
the conviction is held by every man who was his 
associate in the Food Administration that the 
criticisms were based either on misunderstanding 
or personal animosity. 

I do not recall a single member of the Executive 
Council who on some occasions did not display 
irritation or lack of control. Crutchfield was as 
red blooded as any but never once was his equa- 
nimity disturbed or did he display evidence of 
irritation or anger. I once remarked this and his 
reply was : 

" If conditions demand it I can be as forcible as 
anyone; I occasionally break moorings and say 
what I think, but it don't pay in the end." 

His outstanding characteristic was his persistent 

86 



disposition to excuse and condone faults and short- 
comings of others. There was more than one 
county administrator in Pennsylvania who would 
have been deposed but for the magnanimity and 
forbearance of J. S. Crutchfield. It was a story 
oft repeated in his own words in council : 

*'Now don't be too hard. He's a pretty good 
fellow and has right instincts but he's up against 
a stiff proposition. Just give him time and he'll 
come out all right." 

And yet this man was one of the little known 
but potential figures in the mercantile life in this 
country. The ramifications of his business extended 
from Central America to New Brunswick and frcm 
the Pacific to the Keys of Florida. In the year 
preceding his appointment as vice-administrator 
of Pennsylvania, I was informed by a Pittsburgh 
financier that his estimated business transactions 
exceeded twenty million dollars. It was because he 
was a busy man of rare worth that he was selected 
as the right-hand man of Howard Heinz. Possessed, 
seemingly, of all that a man could desire, a charm- 
ing family, beautiful home, lucrative business, 
nevertheless he became a helper with the humblest. 

The immediate necessity for a competent assist- 
ant who could lift much of the burden of detail 
from his shoulders became apparent to Howard 
Heinz while he was yet director of the Department 
of Food Supply of the Committee of Public 
Safety. Crutchfield, of Pittsburgh, one of the 
largest fruit and vegetable commission merchants 

87 



in the United States, was persuaded to accept the 
position. The abihty and farsightedness displayed 
by him as vice- director of food supply was such 
that the first official act of Heinz, when appointed 
Federal Food Administrator for Pennsylvania, was 
to appoint Crutchfield vice-administrator and in 
charge of the Division of Distribution and Markets. 

His work in the latter division included the 
supervision and regulation of supplies of all food 
stuffs to the people of the state. It involved not 
only the distribution but the regulation of sales 
with regard to price and quantity. He exercised 
supervision over the transportation both of staples 
as well as perishable foods. So extensive was the 
field of operation of this division that it required 
this fully organized staff: Chief of Division, J. S. 
Crutchfield, vice-administrator; Trade Distribu- 
tion, R. P. Smith; Farmers' Interests, C. J. Tyson; 
Farmers' Interests, M. L. Phillips; Division of 
Grain Threshing, Charles Garber; Division of 
Price Interpretation, A. F. Gelino, J. H. Beerits; 
Curb Markets, W. P. Jamison, A. B. Ross. 

It is impossible, within the limits of this work, 
to enter into an enumeration of the work of this 
division, so extensive were its ramifications and 
so numerous the lines of its activity. In brief, it 
developed economy stores, a system of low-priced 
establishments; it supervised the publication of 
fair price lists with the purpose of halting profiteer- 
ing; it stimulated increased production of food 
products, encouraged growers to organize for self- 

88 



protection, and supervised the establishment of 
curb markets throughout the state. The division 
worked in close conjunction with the State Depart- 
ment of Food Supply of the Council of National 
Defense, the Pennsylvania State College, the 
Farm Extension Service of the Department of 
Agriculture, the State Grange Patrons of Hus- 
bandry, and with the Agricultural Commission. 
In addition to his work as vice-administrator Mr. 
Crutchfield kept in touch with various other 
divisions of the administration. 

One of the important features of the division 
was the establishment of curb markets in various 
parts of the state. The object of these was to 
bring the producer and consumer into direct 
touch, thus securing a wider market for the former 
and lower prices for the latter. During the fall 
and winter of 19 17 twenty-four curb markets were 
established throughout the state as follows: 

Scranton, 4; Allentown, 3; Pittsburgh, 7; 
Johnstown, 2, and one each in Hazleton, Pittston, 
Lehighton, Bethlehem, Pottsville, Altoona, Mt. 
Carmel and Chester. 

With the opening of 191 8 the work was renewed 
and the close of the year saw them in operation in 
the following cities and towns : 

Philadelphia, 4 ; Scranton, 3 ; Allentown, 2, and 
one each in Sharon, Bradford, Conshohocken, 
Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton and Bristol. 

The total record for the two seasons was forty 
markets established through the state. In Phila- 

89 



delphia the curb markets were operated with 
success until the 4th of January, 1919. 

Thousands of housewives patronized these curb 
markets, particularly in Philadelphia. The news- 
papers gave them wide publicity and thus insured 
their success. 

The markets were started usually with only a 
few farmers and a large number of hucksters as 
the selling force. In some instances there was 
strong opposition to the presence of hucksters. 
Farmers as a rule were rather backward in recog- 
nizing the value of the institution. The opposition 
to the huckster element was overcome by asking 
the patrons and customers to compare curb prices 
with prices they had been accustomed to pay 
elsewhere and the criticism shortly vanished. To 
cover the expenses of conducting the markets in 
Philadelphia a small fee was charged for every 
wagon load of produce. This not only paid neces- 
sary expenses for placards, lists, price cards, etc., 
but left a balance of nearly two hundred dollars at 
the close of the work in Philadelphia, which was 
donated to the Red Cross. 

Physically massive and insistently genial, no 
one who ever had the good fortune to meet Thomas 
Shallcross, Jr., the first chief of the Division of 
Conservation, ever forgot him. He was not se- 
lected for one of the most responsible positions in 
administration work at headquarters upon these 
grounds however. He had an adaptability for 
organization and an originality of ideas that had 

90 



Thomas Shallcross, Jr. 
Chief of the Division 
of Conservation 




Capt. Robert Sevvell 

Chief of the Division 

of Investigations 



contributed to his success as real estate broker and 
business man of Philadelphia for many years — 
these fitted him peculiarly for the position. Added 
to it was abounding good nature of the kind that 
inclined men to his trend of thought and plans of 
operation. 

To "Tom" Shallcross, as he was familiarly 
known in financial circles in his native Philadelphia, 
was intrusted the formation of one of the most 
important divisions in administration work. 
Nobody, not even himself, had a very lucid idea 
of the demands of his position. Production of 
food lost half its value without conservation and 
prevention of waste. It was a new lesson that the 
people of Pennsylvania had to learn. How to 
teach this lesson was a paramount issue. 

As a manipulator of great real estate operations 
Shallcross had discovered certain psychological 
principles that were equally applicable to food 
conservation. One was, as demonstrated at head- 
quarters, that the individual must be taught to 
recognize that certain conditions were to his own 
advantage. If the average Pennsylvanian could 
be taught that food conservation meant victory 
in the World War, an outcome in which he was 
vitally interested, half the work was accomplished. 

His foundations as chief of the division were 
laid on this basis. And the result was an indication 
of his judgment. The four-minute speakers, that 
remarkable body of business and professional men 
which was organized with the purpose of speaking 

91 



in churches, schools, theaters, moving picture 
shows, pubHc entertainments and private gather- 
ings for four minutes only, were supplied by 
Shallcross with material for half a dozen sentences. 
They ran something like this: 

"We must win the war. To win we must feed 
our armies well. To do so we must save food here 
that we may be able to send it to them over there. 
Food will win the war." 

The ground work of his administration had just 
been laid when there came an insistent call from 
the government for him to take up, as a dollar- 
a-year man, a line of work that had been his life 
study, viz., the valuation, negotiation, and pur- 
chase of real estate for great industrial establish- 
ments and for housing the tens of thousands of 
workmen to be employed therein. Men of Mr. 
Shallcross' ability and experience were sorely 
needed. They were comparatively few in number; 
yielding to the call, Tom Shallcross drifted out of 
the food administration work to assume another 
burden more fitted perhaps to his broad shoulders 
and wide experience. 

A slender, dark-eyed man of forty or there- 
abouts, active physically and mentally, and endowed 
with a genius for smoothing down rough places, 
was in charge of conservation work for Philadelphia 
under the direction of Administrator Jay Cooke. 
His name was Thomas R. Elcock, Jr., a native of 
Philadelphia and the son of one of its former 
judges. When Shallcross resigned Mr. Elcock 

92 



was selected by State Administrator Heinz to fill 
the vacancy. It was a wise selection. The 
original plans for this division were amplified. 
As weeks went by new ideas were evolved and 
the Director of Conservation became one of the 
most potent factors in the administration. 

The principal work of the division of conserva- 
tion was one of education. Its duty was to educate 
people to save every scrap of food and to waste 
nothing, and to employ in this work every agency 
that could bring the subject directly to the homes 
of the people. In co-operation with the Women's 
Division it organized a corps of women in each 
county which was in charge of the director 
of woman's work in each county. 

In Philadelphia, under the direction of Jay 
Cooke, a Woman's Food Army with Mrs. H. C. 
Boden in command, was organized on a military 
basis. There were lieutenants in charge of certain 
districts of the city. Under them were sergeants, 
with corporals in command of sub-divisions con- 
sisting usually of a city block. The Woman's 
Food Army was just beginning to function properly 
when the armistice was declared. 

Director Elcock worked in close co-operation 
with the "four-minute men" of the Council of 
National Defense and in addition established in 
Philadelphia his own speakers' bureau. The 
members of this organization together with other 
representatives of the division of conservation 

93 



spoke before an average of from twenty-five to 
thirty audiences each week. 

One of the great features of the division was 
the pledge card campaign, in which a total of 
950,000 women of Pennsylvania pledged them- 
selves to support the requests of the Food Admin- 
istration for food conservation as they were 
promulgated from time to time. 

A food conservation train designed to teach 
the most economical methods of preparing food, 
as well as preventing waste, was equipped and 
operated as the season permitted from September, 
1917, to October, 1918. It was operated under 
the joint auspices of the Food Supply Department 
of the Committee of Public Safety, the United 
States Food Administration, and the State College 
of Pennsylvania. 

It consisted of three coaches, two being devoted 
to the demonstration of cooking and preserving 
methods, and a third to charts and exhibits and 
it was accompanied by a staff of eight persons. 
During the autumn of 1917 and the summer of 
191 8 the train visited for one day each one hundred 
and fifty cities and towns in the state. A total of 
approximately one thousand persons daily visited 
the train while on tour. 

Briefly sketched, the other lines of work consisted 
of inaugurating a public sign campaign. Taste- 
fully designed signs, some of them of vast size, 
were erected in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and in 
every other city and town in the state. In Phila- 

94 



delphia alone over seven hundred of these signs 
were erected — the expense being borne by liberal 
and patriotic citizens. 

To further aid in saving food two gentlemen 
thoroughly familiar with the work were appointed 
by Director Elcock as experts in the dehydrating 
of food stuffs. Messrs. Craig Atmore and H. P. 
Fry acted as consultants for the householder who 
was interested in preserving food by drying, and 
also for the commercial purveyor of food stuff 
who desired to furnish food commodities in a dry 
form. 

Under the conservation program the woman's 
division gave exhibits and demonstrations in 
every county. A war booth in the court yard 
of City Hall, Philadelphia, under direction of 
Miss Pearl MacDonald, maintained for weeks 
graphic exhibits of food saving. At every county 
fair in the state Director Elcock maintained con- 
servation booths where exhibits were held and 
literature distributed. Every school and college 
in the state was visited in the interest of food 
conservation. College presidents, school prin- 
cipals and primary teachers incorporated in their 
regular work instruction and educational matter 
dealing with food problems. Circulars, posters 
and books dealing with the subject went directly 
to every teacher in the state. 

Possibly the division that was more purely 
executive in its function than any other was that 
of County Administration of which H. H. Willock 

95 



was chief. Mr. Willock had under his charge all 
correspondence with the various county adminis- 
trators. He was in a sense the chief of a great 
clearing house. At the outset of his administra- 
tion, with great care and intelligence, he compiled 
and forwarded to each administrator a list of 
suggestions, blank forms for reports, and other 
necessary office details which proved of incalculable 
benefit not only to the administrators but to the 
chiefs of divisions at headquarters whose work 
brought them in touch with the administrators. 

Under the direction and efficient supervision of 
Mr. Willock it was possible at all times for the 
state administrator to know the condition of work 
in every county. In all a total of 405 investiga- 
tors, male and female, were active in the state 
during the period of the war. There were 362 
merchants who acted as volunteer members of 
fair price committees; 61 members of the Bar who 
volunteered their services as legal advisers, while 
49 newspaper men took charge of newspaper 
publicity and served as advisers in the matter of 
publication. The total number of paid employees 
was 172, of volunteer staff members 587, while 
862 deputies, who had charge of as many localities, 
including townships and hamlets, were engaged in 
Food Administration work. 

It became self-evident in the winter of 191 7-18 
as the work of the administration broadened that 
something more was needed than merely promul- 
gating orders from Washington and demanding 

9f' 



their enforcement. The people of the state needed 
education along certain lines; intelligent instruc- 
tion. In recognition of this necessity the Division 
of Education was organized with the appointment 
of Montgomery H. Wright as chief. Mr. Wright 
had for years been identified with newspaper and 
advertising work, and he brought to his new duties 
an experience and energy that rapidly led to a 
detailed organization that rendered valuable assist- 
ance to the administration. The Division of Edu- 
cation was subdivided into three classes — the 
advertising, retail stores and library sections. In 
the closing months of 191 8 this division had 
charge of the publication of the ** House Bulletin,'* 
a semi-monthly journal devoted to the dissem- 
ination of information of value to administration 
workers and retail merchants. 

A very important part of the work of this division 
was the distribution of printed matter and litera- 
ture issued from Washington. This was effected 
through the county administrators and through 
them to women's committees, public schools, public 
libraries and retail stores. 

Miss Florence Hulings, a librarian by profession 
and a daughter of General Willis Hulings, of 
Venango County, undertook the work of distribut- 
ing the division's literature through the public 
libraries of the state. Unfortunately the late 
period at which this work was inaugurated ren- 
dered it effective only during a brief interval before 
the armistice was signed. 

97 



One of the most important features of the 
division's work was to secure the co-operation of 
the merchants of the state. L. W. Wheelock, a 
very successful advertising manager, volunteered 
for this task. Merchants' organizations were 
formed in 349 leading towns and cities in Penn- 
sylvania, and an accurate, direct and complete 
mailing list of over twenty-five thousand merchants 
was compiled. This list was regularly circularized 
with printed matter of interest to the trade, copies 
of important rulings, advertising suggestions and 
useful hints for more effective co-operation between 
the retail trade and the Food Administration. 
Some idea of the extensive activities of this division 
can be obtained from the statement that it encour- 
aged and maintained window demonstrations of 
war food, while attractive lantern slides, featuring 
food mottoes and other important subjects per- 
taining to the work were made and sent to sixteen 
hundred moving picture houses. A motion picture 
film, featuring Mrs. Anna B. Scott, of the 
North American, a widely known cooking expert, 
preparing war time foods, was originated, staged 
and shown in every large city in the common- 
wealth. Campaigns with placards, show cards 
and window exhibits were conducted by Mr. 
Joseph R. Wilkinson to encourage the consumption 
of potatoes, instead of cereals and meats needed 
for our armies abroad. Equally successful was a 
drive for the conservation of sugar. In every 
instance the response of the people was sympathetic. 

98 



In Philadelphia particularly it was hearty and 
sustained. 

The great and constant demand for food with 
which to supply and sustain our armies in Europe 
led to a consequent shortage in certain lines at 
home. This, in turn, and responsive to the law of 
supply and demand, led gradually to increasing 
prices for foodstuffs throughout the country. It 
did more, it gave birth to that unpatriotic and 
traitorous thing known as the "profiteer;" the 
individual who, taking advantage of the conditions 
thus created, piled up unjustifiable and exorbitant 
profits on every food commodity. To counteract 
this, and, if possible, drive the profiteer to his lair, 
there was organized in January, 1918, under the 
direction of Vice-Administrator Crutchfield, the 
Division of Price Interpretation. A. F. Gelino was 
appointed its first chief. He acted in that capacity 
until September, 191 8, when J. S. Beerits, of 
Somerset, was appointed chief on the resignation 
of Mr. Gelino. 

The method of combating the profiteering evil 
was not only simple in operation but proved effec- 
tive in nearly every county in the state. In each 
county the administrator formed a committee 
consisting of representatives of the wholesale 
grocer, retail grocer, dealers in dairy products, 
wholesale and retail, of the granges, women, and 
in certain instances heads of organized labor. It 
was known as the price fixing committee and 
the service was voluntary. 

99 



These committees usually met once a week. 
They discussed market conditions, compared prices, 
grades and brands of goods ; considered the ques- 
tions of supply and demand and then proceeded 
to make up what was considered a fair price list 
of commodities. These prices were pubHshed in 
local newspapers which donated the space. The 
prices fixed were arranged on the cash-and-carry 
basis as well as a charge-and-deliver basis, the latter 
being slightly in excess of the former. The list 
upon which fair prices was fixed included only 
staple commodities and those upon which the 
state administration was advised from Washington 
to consider, viz., sugar, flour, cereals, butter and 
eggs, canned goods and certain miscellaneous 
groceries and dried fruits. 

These committees were organized in sixty-one 
counties of the state. Six were unorganized being 
strictly rural counties of small population and 
without daily newspapers. The effectiveness of 
this movement in restraining profiteering was 
manifested from the beginning. A householder 
who found a merchant demanding a price higher 
than that fixed in the fair price list instantly 
became aware that it was an attempt to exact an 
unwarranted profit, and the dissemination of this 
information throughout a community almost inva- 
riably brought the would-be gouger to a realization 
of his crime. 

Subsequently however, Washington had succeed- 
ed in perfecting what was known as *'a system 

100 



of enforcible margins of profit" which estab- 
lished and regulated the legitimate amount 
of profits a merchant or dealer was permitted to 
fix upon certain commodities. It was not possible, 
except in a few instances, to get this system into 
satisfactory working order and instruct dealers as 
to the provisions of the orders on the subject 
before the necessity for it ceased to exist through 
the ending of the great struggle. « 



101 



CHAPTER IX 

A VITAL PROBLEM. 

Keeping the Dairy Herds and Milk Supply 

OF THE Commonwealth up to 

Standard in a Crisis. 

Prof. Fred Rasmussen, the Chief of the Division 
of Dairy Husbandry, was the least obtrusive mem- 
ber of the executive council. Not that he was of 
a shrinking or retiring nature but the subjects 
upon which he was recognized as perhaps the high- 
est authority in the state were so infrequently 
brought under discussion. Rasmussen,, Phillips 
and Tyson formed a truimvirate of champions of 
tillers of the soil and the dairy interests of the 
state. That's what they were in the administra- 
tion for. Morris L. Phillips had been a sturdy 
farm boy who at an early age had come to the 
great city, made himself a part of it, filled respon- 
sible positions for fifteen years and then went back 
to his first love, the farm, while still a young man. 
By owning and managing farms as a strictly busi- 
ness proposition he not only made a distinct suc- 
cess of it but had also become a recognized author- 
ity on agricultural problems. 

C. J. Tyson was also a product of the farm and 

102 



associated with it all his life ; a college man and a 
college trustee, but above all a business man, he 
was recognized over southeastern Pennsylvania as 
one of the leading pomologists and most practical 
fruit growers in a region noted for that sort of 
thing. His appearance indicated anything but 
connection with the soil. Placed in a group of half 
a dozen city men he would be selected by a dis- 
criminating stranger either as an attorney or a 
successful merchant. The conspicuous position 
he occupied was shown in his selection by the 
U. S. Secretary of Agriculture to be a member 
of an advisory board chosen from the states 
during the Food Administration days. 

Professor Rasmussen's work in the administration 
was along co-ordinated but somewhat separate 
lines. He was a specialist in dairy husbandry. 
He was tall, with a strong expressive face, a genial 
smile, and a burr, almost imperceptible in his 
speech at times an inheritance from his Danish 
parents. He had temporarily stepped out of his 
chair in the faculty of State College and come to 
Philadelphia for days at a time to advise concern- 
ing the perplexing problems that had to do with 
cattle foods, mill feeds and dairy rations. 

I am not so sure that the members of the execu- 
tive council fully appreciated the value of Fred- 
erick Rasmussen or the extent of his practical 
knowledge of dairy husbandry until a conference 
of county administrators was held in the summer 
of 19 1 8 at the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia. 

103 



The mill feed situation was in a critical condition. 
It was scarce in the east and prices were sky- 
rocketing. It didn't matter so much in the west 
and in states contiguous to great milling cen^ters; 
but transportation lines were congested and millers, 
manufacturers of mixed feeds, and dealers in dairy 
foods, were weeks and months behind in the 
receipt of their shipments from the west. 

It was at this conference that Prof. Frederick 
Rasmussen's name appeared on the list of speakers 
to discuss the troublesome questions of dairy 
husbandry and mill feeds. It wasn't an address 
as subsequently proved that afternoon; it was a 
plain, comprehensive, enlightening, encouraging 
talk. He hadn't spoken five minutes till nearly 
every county administrator was making notes. 
He was giving them a new vision of a vexed 
problem. They were not the mere utterances of 
a college professor based on a groundwork of 
experiment. He was speaking from the abundance 
of knowledge gained in the management of his 
own herds in a western state; an experience too 
that stretched back to a rich dairy farm in Den- 
mark before he realized his dreams of life in another 
land. The practical farmers among the county 
administrators, and the others among them who 
had come up from a farm into other lines of effort 
in the world, heard things that afternoon they 
never heard before. 

"Mr. Chairman," cried an enthusiastic adminis- 
trator as the professor ended the general quiz that 

104 



followed his talk, "I move that Professor Ras- 
mussen's address be printed and that copies be 
placed in the hands of the county administrators 
for distribution among the dairy farmers of the 



state." 



What finer testimonial could have been offered 
Prof. Frederick Rasmussen of the faculty of the 
State College of Pennsylvania ? 

The news of that day, and the character of that 
twenty-minute talk reached Washington. Officials 
in authority recognized that here was a man who 
was needed for specific work "over there." Fred 
Rasmussen was summoned to Washington and 
asked to take charge of the work not only of super- 
vision of the herds of dairy cattle that supplied our 
hospitals in France with fresh milk, but to lend 
aid in rehabilitating the decimated herds of north- 
ern France and Belgium. Passports were gotten 
ready, his work in Pennsylvania was adjusted to 
meet the new conditions — and then came the 
armistice. But coincidentally other influences 
were at work to give wide recognition to his ex- 
perience and ability. These came to fruition. 
When the list of men selected to form the excep- 
tionally able cabinet of Governor William C. 
Sproul was made public a few weeks later the 
name of Prof. Frederick Rasmussen appeared op- 
posite the words, "To be Secretary of Agriculture 
for Pennsylvania." 

And every man who had been his associate in 
the Federal Food Administration recognized the 

105 



discriminating wisdom in the governor's choice 
and said — "Amen/' 

Dr. Clyde Lyndon King was Milk Commissioner 
for the administration in Pennsylvania. He also 
was milk commissioner for Zone No. 3, which 
comprised half a dozen states including Pennsyl- 
vania and of which Howard Heinz was chairman. 
In October, 191 8, Dr. King was appointed milk 
commissioner for the eastern states by Mr. 
Hoover and upon the creation of the Dairy Divi- 
sion of the National Food Administration at Wash- 
ington was made chief of the section on distribu- 
tion, costs, and policies. An added honor came 
when he was appointed chairman of the butter 
committee of the National Food Administration. 

Dr. King came into the Food Administration 
from the University of Pennsylvania, retaining, 
however, his position as Assistant Professor of 
Political Science at that institution. He was 
known as the "Milk Specialist," a title which later 
was changed to that of "Federal Milk Commis- 
sioner." Of all the members of the administration 
who were specialists. King's field of operation was 
the more clearly defined. It was his province to 
keep in touch with the milk situation in the state; 
to see not only that the supply was not curtailed 
but that it was increased; to adjust difficulties 
between farmers and dairyman, and the wholesale 
dealer or middleman in the great cities, and in the 
natural course of events, between the latter and 
the consumer 

106 



Dr. Clyde L. King 
M»lk Commissioner 



Prof. Fred. Rasmussen 
Division of Dairy Husbandry 




Milk to babies and growing children is a uni- 
versal necessity. Whatever might happen in the 
way of food exigencies the children of the state, 
because of their helplessness, had to be protected. 
In this sense King was the champion of childhood. 

Still another phase of his effort, and in a way 
vital to urban dwellers, was the price to the con 
sumer. Probably the greatest monument to Dr. 
King, as a member of the Food Administration is 
the record of milk prices in Pennsylvania pre- 
sented during his term of office, as compared with 
milk prices outside the state and in other great 
cities. It is an illuminating and instructive exposi- 
tion of what unwearied effort backed by brains 
and fair dealing can accomplish. The highest 
prices for milk in Philadelphia during the period 
of the administration's activities was fourteen cents 
per quart for pasteurized bottle milk, delivered ; as 
compared with seventeen cents in Washington, 
Baltimore and New York, and sixteen cents per 
quart in many other large eastern centers. But 
three cities of any size in the country had as low 
a price as fourteen cents to the consumer; these 
were St. Louis, Chicago and Milwaukee, and in 
no one of these were the returns to the farmer pro- 
portionately as large as in the Philadelphia district. 
In Pittsburgh the price did not exceed fifteen 
cents as compared with sixteen cents and seven- 
teen cents in Cleveland, Cincinnati and nearby 
Ohio towns; besides the delivery conditions were 
more costly in Pittsburgh than in Philadelphia. 

107 



The sum total of this statement is — the general 
price of milk to the consumer in the State of Penn- 
sylvania was kept correspondingly lower than the 
prevailing prices in neighboring states. 

In addition, the amount of milk produced in 
Pennsylvania was greater at the close of the year 
of 191 8 than ever before, and the flow of milk in 
the summer of that year was the maximum of 
any recent years. Another interesting showing 
was, that from the evidence available, the con- 
sumption of milk per capita was larger in Penn- 
sylvania cities than in other territories in the 
United States. 

A fact which contributed largely to some of the 
above conditions was that above and beyond all, 
King was a conciliator. So far as I am aware he 
never undertook to settle a difference between 
producer and wholesaler or wholesaler and con- 
sumer that he did not, with but one exception, 
accomplish his purpose. This was outside of Penn- 
sylvania. It was a contest that had been going 
on for weeks ; the minds of men had been settled 
in grooves for and against, and Dr. King was 
called in as a last resort. I believe the courts 
finally decided the dispute. 

A fine example of the activities of Dr. King was 
given in January, 1919. Early one morning hun- 
dreds of householders in Philadelphia arose to find 
the matitutinal milk bottles empty on the front 
step and no supply available, for a driver's strike 
was on. It was unjustifiable and unpatriotic. The 

108 



strike involved, according to investigation, the 
demanded recognition by a wholesale concern of 
a union which had no members among its em- 
ployees ; another union having already been recog- 
nized by the firm. It was an alleged sympathetic 
strike but it later developed that there was another 
reason for the drivers' action, viz., a desire to 
force a closed shop agreement against returning 
soldiers to prevent them from re-entering the milk 
delivery business, thus depriving the strikers of 
their highly remunerative wages and commissions, 
which ranged from forty to seventy-five dollars per 
week, according to statements of the men them- 
selves. 

When it became apparent that the strike would 
be prolonged, causing suffering and illness among 
the children, depriving hospitals and the sick and 
infirm of their daily supply. King immediately 
laid plans to counteract such a condition. Within 
twelve hours arrangements were made for the 
opening of independent milk stations throughout 
the city. Public school houses and churches, in 
addition to regular depots, were to be supplied by 
a delivery system of trucks. In the meantime, 
he had been called into consultation on the situa- 
tion but finding it was a question of rival labor 
organizations and not a lack of supply, of shipping 
facilities, or prices, little could be done in his 
capacity as milk commissioner. He could, how- 
ever, and did, arrange to alleviate suffering and 
supply milk to all those in the city who desired or 

109 



required it. Then a few hours before shipments to 
his pubHc milk stations were scheduled to begin 
the strike was called off. Popular indignation 
against the driver's action forced the issue, for it 
was proven by newspaper investigation that the 
strike was largely intended to build a Chinese 
wall of exclusion against returning soldiers who 
might seek their former employment as milk 
wagon drivers. But the commissioner in the 
vernacular of the thoroughfare "was on the job." 



110 



CHAPTER X 

INSIDE FACTS. 

An Economic Revolution Planned for Phila- 
delphia BUT Never Effected — Hotels 
Saved Food by the Ton. 

If the world war had continued its course for 
six months longer Philadelphia would have wit- 
nessed an economic revolution. Plans were under 
way and details were worked out for a new system 
of retail merchandising. Washington concurred 
in the plan. If successful in Philadelphia it would 
have been put in operation in every state. 

Herbert G. Stockwell, Chief of the Division of 
Audits and Accounts, originated the system. Mr. 
Stockwell was one of the leading certified account- 
ants in the country; an ex-president of the Penn- 
sylvania Association of Certified Accountants and 
a member of the Bar. He was a man of broad 
practical ideas, whose advice in the executive 
council was always acceptable because it had a 
foundation of deliberate judgment and keen an- 
alysis. Stockwell, unobtrusive, genial, scholarly, 
was for several years lecturer at the Wharton 
School of Finance of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, the author of a number of books and a 

HI 



gentleman of high attainments and culture. The 
premises of his system were as follows : 

The mass of the people in every great city de- 
pend upon the corner grocery for their food supply. 
The proprietor of the average corner grocery is 
not trained to the business. He frequently handles 
commodities that are unfit for food, or are of such 
low grade that they can be disposed of at a low 
price. The vast majority of them keep no books 
and have no figures showing profits; it is a ques- 
tion of the amount of money remaining on hand 
each night at the close of business. In the poorer 
sections these places are operated with no regard 
for the health of the customer. If they were fewer 
in number there would be greater attention to the 
needs of the customers, lower prices, and rules 
would be adopted to protect the health of their 
patrons. Saloons are proportioned to population; 
why not groceries? Public health demands it. 

The system devised by Mr. Stockwell contem- 
plated licensing every grocer. The number of 
retail grocery stores were to be apportioned to the 
number of inhabitants of a district. Where one 
low- class grocery served thirty to forty families, 
under the Stockwell system there would be two 
hundred families supplied by one high class. 

This enlarged area of operation, the increased 
number of customers, and the desire to retain 
their patronage would result in greater economy 
in buying and in reduced prices to customers. It 
would improve the morale of the community. 

112 




Herbert G. Stockwell 
Chief of the Division of Auditing 



When people discovered that they could purchase 
better food for the same money they had formerly 
paid the careless, uncleanly, corner grocer they 
would have no desire to return to the old system. 
The grocer would be amenable to law under his 
license and knowing this he would conduct his 
business accordingly. 

The plan was laid before the administration in 
Washington and had received its approval and had 
the armistice not been signed when it was, Penn- 
sylvania would have introduced a new and unusual 
system of food distribution. 

The services demanded of Mr. Stockwell as 
Chief of Audits and Accounts required a man 
trained to the work, of highest standing in the 
community and of unquestioned integrity and 
patriotism. Within thirty days of his appoint- 
ment he was invited to a conference in Washington 
where he was directed to submit plans for auditing 
and investigation, among merchants and manu- 
facturers, on a scale that could be made effective 
throughout the United States. So deeply were the 
national authorities interested in his work that 
the chief of the division and several of his assist- 
ants visited Philadelphia to have him suggest 
improvements in the management of affairs at 
Washington. 

The operations of his division were in the strict- 
est sense confidential. It was his business to in- 
vestigate licensees charged with profiteering; to 
examine their books in detail, and delve into the 

113 



innermost secrets of their business. His reports 
were made to Mr. Heinz and by him to Washing- 
ton. The great difficulty was to secure high-class 
accountants, discreet and able to carry on the 
work. They were high-salaried men; and yet 
less than a dozen were employed at any one time. 
The confidential nature of Mr. Stockwell's duties 
did not end with the armistice. The reports of 
his investigations, when the administration de- 
mobilized, were boxed up under his personal super- 
vision and shipped to Washington. They were for 
the eyes of government officials alone. Yet what 
a remarkable story is lost in the faithfulness of 
Herbert G. Stockwell; stories of attempted brib- 
ery, distorted accounts, burned books, and fake 
bookkeeping. 

His field covered the state, but the efficiency of 
the investigators under Houston Dunn, who made 
preliminary reports on suspected firms, saved the 
government thousands of dollars in unnecessary 
expense. 

The limits of this volume and the confidential 
nature of Mr. Stockwell's work do not permit of 
the extended story which the latter deserves. 
Two hundred and seventy-two cases of suspected 
profiteering were examined ; among them seventy- 
three restaurants, ninety-five groceries, thirteen 
fruit dealers, twenty-seven fish merchants, and 
thirteen miscellaneous. In addition to his work 
as a member of the Food Administration, Mr. 
Stockwell or his firm acted as a clearing house for 

114 



the War Chest. At the request of Washington he 
investigated the coal situation, and in one instance 
saved the government over a miUion dollars by 
investigating a concern which was about to receive 
a war contract and whose creditors were harassing it 
in a way that would have involved the government 
in loss and delay had it not been for the Stockwell 
examination. And all of this admirable service was 
a gratuitous contribution on the part of Mr. Stock- 
well and his associates to the winning of the war. 

The character of some of the firms investigated 
by Stockwell's division is illustrated in the follow- 
ing: A Philadelphia concern known to be pro- 
German in its sympathies was under investigation. 
Certain books were missing which they had prom- 
ised to produce. On the morning the armistice 
was proclaimed StockwelFs chief accountant called 
them on the telephone and informed the manager 
that the federal examiners would be around that 
afternoon. The exultant and insulting answer 
came back over the wire : 

"Oh, you go to hell. The war's over, you can't 
do anything now. Fm going out to get drunk." 

Only in a general way, and to a certain extent 
unsatisfactory, could the amount of flour con- 
served and sugar saved in Pennsylvania house- 
holds during the conservation period be estimated. 
There is no uncertainty, however, regarding the 
amount of food saved by hotel and restaurant 
keepers. In this respect Pennsylvania also led 
the states. 



115 



From beginning to end a card index system was 
maintained that furnished accurate information of 
the savings of firms, individuals, and corporations 
in this business. This was due to the methods of 
organization appHed by J. Miller Frazier, Chief of 
the Division of Hotels, Clubs and Restaurants. 
The management of a great hotel or large restau- 
rant depends for its success or failure upon the 
accuracy of its bookkeeping. Except in the small 
popular price, "home cooking'' restaurant is there 
a lack of business system. The so-called "one- 
arm" cafe or lunch house is usually one of a chain 
of restaurants operated by a corporation in which 
overhead charges, help, light, fuel and the hundred 
and one incidentals are figured out to the fraction 
of a cent. 

J. Miller Frazier was aware of this fact. His 
long experience as a hotel manager, particularly in 
the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, Philadelphia, en- 
abled him to perfect a system whereby, as the 
work of the Food Administration proceeded, he 
could tell in any given month of 191 8 just how 
much meat, flour, sugar or other food essentials 
had been saved in accordance with Mr. Hoover's 
plans. 

There was no division in the Food Administra- 
tion in which system reached the perfection that 
it did in the Division of Hotels, Clubs and Restau- 
rants. When he was appointed chief of the divi- 
sion, Frazier's first work was to secure, through a 
business agency, a list of all hotels, clubs, lestau- 

116 



rants and public eating houses in the state. There 
were thirteen thousand of them. His first big job 
was to circularize every one of these places direct- 
ing attention to the requirements of the adminis- 
tration and requesting their hearty co-operation. 
At regular intervals from December, 1917, to 
December, 191 8, Mr. Frazier circularized this list 
not only with the rulings from Washington but 
suggestions as to the best manner of meeting the 
requirements of the food laws. At regular inter- 
vals he received from this list reports of the 
amount of certain commodities purchased and 
used ; the amount of meat conserved on meatless 
Tuesdays, of flour saved on wheatless Wednes- 
days, and the amount, in pounds, of sugar that 
had been saved for the government within certain 
periods. 

Had J. Miller Frazier lived back in the days 
of his ancestors among the hills of Scotland he 
would have been described as a "canny bit o' a 
mon." He was astute; a clever judge of men, as 
became the manager of a great caravansary; in- 
tensely practical yet combining with it a warmth 
and glow that was reserved for personal friends. 
Long before some other equally important divisions 
had gotten down to a basis of hard work Miller's 
division was pounding out results. 

Take November, 19 17, and the reports received 
through his return postal-card system showed that 
the hotels, clubs and restaurants of the state had 
saved 900,000 pounds of meat, 432,000 pounds of 

117 



flour. In December following the administration 
instructed him to notify his people that it would 
be necessary to institute another meatless day, 
Friday. Then a further effort was made to secure 
more pledge cards from those who, through care- 
lessness, had failed to sign up and they came in 
with a rush. In December over S,ooo pledge cards 
to observe meatless and wheatless days were sent 
in. The questionnaires on the subject brought forth 
the astonishing report to Frazier that his division 
had gone "over the top" in savings effected of 
1,612,000 pounds of meat; 878,000 pounds of 
flour. 

But even this remarkable return did not satisfy 
the chief of division of hotels. He immediately 
organized every county, appointed a hotel man as 
a lieutenant to distribute pledge cards, posters and 
general information, and who was ready to report 
within forty-eight hours at any time the condition 
of affairs in his district. In January came the 
remarkable report that the hotels and restaurants 
in Pennsylvania had saved 1,695,000 pounds of 
meat at the behest of the Food Administration. 

It is only possible to play up the high lights in 
the reports of this remarkably efficient chief. June, 
191 8, was the banner month in saving of meat, 
1,792,000 pounds being the total. June of that 
year holds the record of flour conservation by the 
hotels, viz., 1,784,000 pounds; August, however, 
carried off the palm in sugar conservation with 

118 




J. Miller Frazier 
Chief of the Division of Hotels, Clubs and Restaurants 



999)000 pounds. The grand total as shown by his 
books gives these figures during his official career 
as chief of the division for the state : 

Meat saved 19,489,000 pounds. 
Flour " 16,012,000 " 
Sugar " 6,352,000 

And then to show the type of man J. Miller 
Frazier was in a private letter on the subject of 
his work he says: 

"Had I not been aided by the hearty co-opera- 
tion of my county lieutenants and assistants and 
indeed by the hotelmen of the state I never could 
have accomplished the results that I have been 
able to report. At no time was a demand made of 
anyone of them that they did not make every 
effort to carry out. 



119 



CHAPTER XI 

A MAN WITH AN IDEA. 

Houston Dunn and His Investigators — Smith 
Kept the State Food Supply Equalized 
BY Prompt Shipments. 

Herbert Hoover, or someone in his office at 
Washington, was responsible for making Houston 
Dunn a member of the Federal Food Administra- 
tion in Pennsylvania. It was one of the best 
things that came out of Washington in the interest 
of Howard Heinz's administration. 

A month or so after the Food Administration 
wheels began moving in a rather desultory fashion, 
the organization was in its inchoate state, Houston 
Dunn, or as he is known to the business world, 
Houston Dunn, Inc., an engineer of Philadelphia 
whose professional activities run the gamut of 
constructive, consulting, and theoretical engineer- 
ing, made a discovery. It was during one of his 
frequent trips through the state. It wasn't pre- 
cisely a discovery, it was an inspiration. On its 
spur he sent a letter to Hoover, whom he had 
never met, suggesting that the paramount duty 
of the Food Administration, he spoke only for 
Pennsylvania, was to organize the farmers ; arouse 

120 



them to the necessity of an increased production of 
crops. It wasn't a matter of generahzation but 
of detail. The farmers should not only be 
organized down to the township, but to the last 
acre. 

Hoover, or the person to whom he referred the 
letter of the Philadelphia engineer, answered in 
the usual official fashion, viz.: "Yours of the 
17th received. Mr. Hoover appreciates your 
interest and suggestion, etc., etc." It was both 
discouraging and disconcerting to a man who had 
the interests of his country at heart. 

A couple of weeks later, it was back in Sep- 
tember, 1917, there came a letter from Howard 
Heinz requesting Mr. Houston Dunn to call at 
headquarters for a conference. Hoover, or the 
other fellow in Washington, had forwarded Dunn's 
letter to Pennsylvania headquarters, possibly, with 
the suggestion that this man was worth looking 
up ; an individual with ideas ; a business man who 
thought of things and projected schemes outside 
ordinary lines. That is how Houston Dunn 
became a member of the Food Administration. 

The idea of organizing the agricultural forces 
had been seized weeks before by the Committee 
of Public Safety through its Food Supply Depart- 
ment. It was working out at the time Dunn wrote 
to Washington; but the fact that his was spon- 
taneous, while the other's was being evolved by men 
who had been appointed to think, and scheme, and 
plan food production, was credited to the engineer. 

121 



Insurance engineering, if one might coin a 
phrase, is a large part of Houston Dunn's business. 
This brings him in touch with insurance folk over 
the state, and as the Food Administration spread 
its tendrils farther over the commonwealth, it 
became imperative that some method be adopted 
to detect slackers, pro-German sympathizers, and 
the criminally and wilfully negligent who sought 
to evade or render ineffective food laws. 

Houston Dunn again, when this necessity be- 
came apparent, came forward with another sug- 
gestion: "Why not organize in every county, or 
group of contiguous counties, a force of men, in- 
telligent, bright, and fearless, to look up and report 
such cases? Thus, an administrator knows that 
a certain leading miller in his county is violating 
the food laws; it is impossible to secure evidence 
through any resident of the county. What can be 
done V' The report reaches headquarters in Phila- 
delphia; there is no delay in disposing of the 
matter: "Turn it over to Dunn's division." It 
is turned, and by the aforesaid Dunn, chief of 
the division, turned over to his investigators. 
Possibly the case was up in Smethport or down in 
Bedford. The state investigator in time turned 
up the evidence and in natural sequence the 
offender was turned over for penalizing to the 
county administrator or, if ultra-flagrant, to State 
Administrator Heinz. Usually it turned out badly 
for the delinquent. A turning all around. 

It was an elaborate system that Dunn worked 

122 



out. There were between thirty-five and forty 
special investigators scattered over the state under 
his direction. Sometimes he'd go out on long 
trips of inspection. He wasn't a detective, only 
a business man turned superintendent of a secret 
service force and, as such, day after day he drove 
his high-powered car over Pennsylvania from the 
Maryland almost to the New York line. 

Then, one day Houston Dunn disappeared from 
the office. Hepburn absented himself; Jay Cooke's 
chair at the council table was vacant. There were 
nurses flitting about headquarters in white caps 
and dresses, wearing masks and carrying small 
glass receptacles with black rubber nozzles and 
white rubber bulbs. The odor of menthol was in 
the air. Influenza had struck headquarters a 
stunning blow. Word came up from the supply 
division that young WiUiams was dead; next 
day Miss So-and-so of the clerical force was no 
more, and so the grim record grew. Maurice 
Lacy, Heinz's private secretary, a kindly sym- 
pathetic soul, turned solicitor and almost daily 
gathered money for wreaths and bouquets of sweet 
smelling flowers to lay on coffin lids. 

Two weeks later Dunn reappeared. His face, 
never ruddy, had a washed-out look. There were 
dark circles beneath and a tired look in his eyes. 
He participated in the conference of the morning 
as usual. His co-workers noticed that he wore a 
heavy black silk tie in place of the usual colored 
one. Houston Dunn had witnessed his entire 

123 



family prostrated, and in the midst of it all had 
seen one of the beloved pass through the dark 
portal and go out of his life forever. Then he 
came back, and in his unobtrusive way took up 
his work where he had laid it down as though a 
night instead of a tragedy had intervened. 

In the spring and summer of 191 8 the outlook 
in the food administration was hazy and uncertain. 
No one knew just what might happen. There 
were possibilities of food shortage and demon- 
strations. Every duty not assignable to anyone 
else was turned over to Houston Dunn to investi- 
gate; to devise remedies or map our constructive 
plans. In this period Heinz called Dunn into a 
conference the subject of which was the question 
of covering instantly a shortage in any com- 
modity should it occur in any section of the city. 
Dunn got busy. He zoned the city with special 
reference to its manufacturing and industrial 
sections. Plans were made for the establishment 
of bread, milk and provision depots; tentative 
leases were taken on several buildings in the 
northeastern part of the city, and Howard Heinz 
approved of everything. But the critical situa- 
tion was never reached. Had it come Heinz 
and his men were ready for it. 

There was a man at headquarters, slender, dark 
eyed, smooth shaven, whose light brown hair was 
thinning rapidly on top and who spoke in a low 
tone that was never known to rise above a con- 
versational pitch, who occupied the unique posi- 

124 



tion in the administration machine. He had a 
desk, a secretary, two or three shelves filled with 
book-shaped letter files and a sheaf of letters 
and telegrams, usually telegrams, under a glass 
paperweight on his desk. He was never fussed 
and never in a rush, yet this unassuming chap had 
but to touch a telegraph wire and carloads of 
flour, sugar, flour substitutes, and food commodi- 
ties of all kinds began rolling from point to point 
throughout the state. He was the magician of 
rail movement; the Aladdin of the administration. 
His name was Robert P. Smith, and in his 
hands were placed for determination all questions 
concerning shipments, scarcity, or surplus of 
food commodities. He operated under the modest 
title, unsatisfactory perhaps and non-descriptive 
of his particular function, *' Trade Distribution." 
He was the one indispensable expert who was 
always and ever *'on the job." He had the entree 
of every railroad traflSc manager's oflSce. He 
lunched and dined with masters of transportation 
and government officers who were in control of 
regional divisions of railroad operation. They 
met him as one clothed with authority; but above 
all as one who knew his business. 

It was Director Smith's duty to prevent 
accumulations of food stuff^s in one section and 
avert scarcity in another section of the state. 
A county administrator would wire that the 
bakers of a certain town had barely suflScient 
flour to last three days ; "supply needed instantly." 

125 



Within an hour Robert P. Smith had instructed 
a certain warehouse in a certain city to dispatch 
immediately two car loads of flour to that par- 
ticular point and at the same time had wired a 
county administrator in another section of the 
state to ship immediately to the warehouse in 
question two car loads of flour from the stock 
accumulated at a designated mill or city to 
maintain the balance of trade. 

Said Director Smith in speaking of his work at 
the administration: 

*'I don't believe the public realized the im- 
portance of conserving wheat at the time, Feb- 
ruary, 1917, that Herbert Hoover issued the fifty- 
fifty order with the statement that we would be 
required to export 70,000,000 bushels of wheat to 
our allies; and to do this great sacrifices were 
necessary. I had to reckon with indiff^erent 
dealers who didn't care to have their business 
disturbed and flour hoarders who had bought in 
large quantities anticipating just the contingency 
that arose. Then the wholesale trade claimed that 
flour substitutes couldn't be obtained which, no 
doubt, was the case for a few weeks. But I knew 
from reports in my hands that there was enough 
flour in consumers' hands to last until western 
mills could deliver substitutes in Pennsylvania. 
Wherever I found, held in stock, large amounts of 
flour in excess of local requirements I had it re- 
shipped to markets elsewhere in the state that were 
short of a supply. 

126 




Houston Dunn 
Chief of Division of County Inspectors 



"A fact not known to the public, and which 
was due to Hoover's foresight, was the holding of 
large amounts of flour in public warehouses for 
an emergency. Philadelphia had thousands of 
barrels in reserve in 191 8. This, of course, was 
before the new crop was available. The flour was 
held at our disposal. I was privileged to draw 
upon it for shipment to any part of Pennsylvania 
where there was a shortage or a danger of a flour 
famine. But only about 15,000 barrels were re- 
quired before the new crop was available. I found 
there was a considerable amount of winter flour 
in the state that was not being used by the baking 
trade, which demanded spring wheat flour from 
the northwest. I insisted on this flour being 
consumed at home, which was done. 

"The great struggle was to keep flour moving 
and the consumer supplied with substitutes until 
the new crop of 1917 got to market; when it did 
another situation just as serious as the shortage 
confronted us. The market became congested, 
warehouses were filled to overflowing, tracks were 
congested and railroad equipment tied up because 
flour dealers had overstocked." 

It often became necessary for the director to 
make decisions affecting great interests, thus 
establishing a precedent on which future action 
could be based. An important issue was raised 
in September, 1918, concerning a shipment of 
substitutes. The consignee's attorney was an 
old acquaintance of the director. He visited the 

127 



attorney's office one day in connection with this 
particular case. The latter was brimming over 
with technicalities, fortified with judicial decisions, 
and voluble on "condition of consignment, law 
of contract, etc., etc." Smith heard him in silence 
and then as the lawyer took a bulky volume 
from his shelves the director quietly remarked 
with a gesture of dissent: 

"No use, Joe, those books'll not do you any 
good. I'm laying down the law in this case and 
I get it direct from Hoover in Washington, and 
he gets it from the President. We'll consider the 
case closed." And it was. 



128 




Robert P. Smith 
Chief of Trade DistributiDn 



CHAPTER XII 

THE COMEDY ELEMENT. 

Tales of the Grave and the Gay in the Sugar 

Division Where Falsehood Flourished 

Like a Green Bay Tree. 

"Tales of the grave and the gay/' would be a 
perfectly descriptive title for the hundreds of 
interesting incidents and pathetic little stories 
that came out of the sugar division in the months 
of its existence. It was at once the most remark- 
able and the most unlovely of all the departments 
at headquarters; the "rough house" section, the 
domain of prevarication and the abiding place of 
perjury; the busiest place for the time being the 
Recording Angel ever had to deal with. 

An ancient proverb says, "There is no aristoc- 
racy in crime," and by the same token there was 
no aristocracy in the persistent, bold-faced, awk- 
ward, flippant, unmitigated and disreputable lying 
that was daily associated with the work of the 
sugar division. Perjury left its trail along the 
corridors and through the offices. Rich and poor, 
aristocrat and denizen of the slum, philanthropist 
and miser, Jew, Gentile and Greek, the educated 
and the ignorant, stood side by side upon the same 

129 



disreputable platform when it came to mis- 
statements about sugar. Lying had no special 
votaries; representatives of all classes bowed at 
the shrine of mendacity. And this same condition 
prevailed generally over the state ; in nearly every 
county. Subreption's temple was cheek-by-jowl 
with the county administrator's office. It was a 
revelation as amazing as it was shocking to the 
officials who were compelled to come in contact 
with it; a painful realization that men and women 
would imperil their honor for the sake of a few 
pounds of sugar. 

Nearly all the administrators had their aug- 
mented office forces ready to deal with the sugar 
situation when Washington issued its edict. There 
were exceptions, of course, as in the case of Ad- 
ministrator Williams of Northampton County, 
who assumed charge but two days before the issu- 
ance of certificates began. Within twenty-four 
hours he had assembled the necessary force; for 
an entire day and until nearly daylight the follow- 
ing morning he spent the hours continuously drill- 
ing his people. In Philadelphia the superintendent 
of public schools was appealed to and several 
hundred school teachers from the higher grades 
volunteered to act as clerks, recorders and office 
inspectors. J. E. Bacon who had assisted at 
Philadelphia Liberty Loan Headquarters in work 
connected with one of the bond issues, was ap- 
pointed by Jay Cooke secretary of the division 
with Herbert D. Allman as assistant. 

130 



The first few days' rush for certificates demon- 
strated that the oflSces in the Finance Building 
were wholly inadequate to accommodate the 
thousands of applicants. The entire ground floor 
of a building on Fifteenth Street opposite South 
Penn Square was offered rent free by the owner; 
tables were hurriedly secured, railings erected, 
and long unpainted board counters were con- 
structed. Even with these facilities the crowds 
were so dense that for days a queue was formed 
that stretched to Chestnut Street. Men, women 
and children waited for hours to obtain certificates 
or make statements. It was during this period that 
the weakness of humanity and its capacity for 
wilful misrepresentation were disclosed to the 
authorities. 

The saddest, and most spectacular experience of 
the division was during the three weeks of the 
influenza epidemic, or, as it was popularly known, 
the "flu." At the end of the first week sixty per cent 
of the stenographers and women clerks were pros- 
trated. The serious atmosphere of the surround- 
ings were augmented by the appearance of trained 
nurses in uniform wearing protective masks over 
their faces who in a practical way went about their 
work of rendering immune from the disease those 
who remained at their desks. More than any 
other division did this one require the use of 
prophylactics, for a large percentage of the 
clientele were from sections of the city most likely 
to promote and harbor the spread of the infection. 

131 



The bravery and patriotism of the women who 
escaped attack in carrying on the work and taking 
up the burden of the victims was beyond praise. 

In the midst of this period a comely person well 
dressed, seemingly in good circumstances reached 
the desk of Assistant Secretary AUman in tears. 
She declared that the legal department of the 
administration had compelled her to give fifty 
dollars to the Red Cross which took her last penny. 
It was all the money she possessed and she had a 
small family of children to support, at the same 
time ostentatiously displaying an empty pocket- 
book. "They accuse me of hoarding sugar," she 
said. Her story was straight, logical and convinc- 
ing and his sympathies being aroused, Allman 
directed her to return to the legal department, 
explain the situation, and let him know the result. 
An hour or so later she again appeared at the head 
of the waiting line more profoundly abject and 
lachrymose than before. The legal department 
had informed her that her case was closed and 
could not be reopened. With his sympathies still 
further aroused, the assistant secretary dictated 
a letter to J. B. Lex, Esq., in charge of legal 
enforcements, asking him if it were not possible to 
make a further examination as he felt an injustice 
might have been unintentionally done in the case 
of this woman, and if so, her money should be 
returned. With a profusion of thanks the woman 
departed. As she disappeared his stenographer 
whispered in Allman's ear: 

132 



"Did you notice the first time that lady spoke 
to you she was wearing large diamond ear-rings? 
When she came in just now they had been removed 
from her ears." 

"Are you sure of it?" the assistant secretary 
asked. 

"Positive," was the reply. 

Closing his desk and seizing his hat AUman 
rushed out and found the woman just about to 
ascend in the elevator to Mr. Lex's office. Her 
face was wreathed in exultant smiles and she 
engaged in joyful conversation with a man, doubt- 
less her husband. 

"Let me have that letter I gave you a moment 
ago," said Mr. AUman. The woman handed it 
over. 

"If I am not mistaken, Madam, you were wearing 
diamonds in your ears when you came into my 
office the first time." 

"Yes, I was," she faltered. 

The letter was instantly destroyed in her pres- 
ence. The statement that she was penniless was 
false. Destitute people do not wear costly dia- 
monds. The charge of hoarding was true and 
thus ended what came to be known in the division 
as the "Romance of the Diamond Lady." 

The antithesis of this was the case of a little 
old lady with a hesitant manner who looked as 
though she might have stepped out of some rare 
old colonial painting. Her manner was dejected 
and appealing. She informed the clerk who was 

133 



handling her case that she baked homemade cakes 
and sold them in the office buildings in the heart of 
town and by so doing supported herself and a 
widowed sister. She had on hand a sufficient 
supply of sugar for a couple of months, for she 
used very little, but through ignorance had 
neglected to register her requirements in time. 
Under Washington's ruling she was not entitled 
to any sugar for the remainder of the year. The 
law could not be evaded yet the case was so 
appealing that one of the officials succeeded in 
interesting a large baking concern which agreed to 
supply her with cakes such as she made at home 
at a cost even lower than she could have made 
them herself. Until it disbanded, the sugar divi- 
sion was numbered among her best customers. 

The oddest plea for a supply of sugar for pre- 
serving came from a member of a world-wide 
religious sect whose tenets proscribe the flesh 
of swine as food. There seemed to be difficulty in 
adjusting his application and the man was referred 
to the secretary. 

"What do you preserve?" he was asked. 

After a considerable and embarrassing pause on 
his part he replied : 

"Apple sauce." 

"How do you use this apple sauce .^" 

"I eat it with roast pork," he answered ap- 
parently surprised at the interrogation. 

The official in charge decided that if the appli- 
cant could violate the precepts of his religion as 

134 



readily as he did the regulations of his government, 
he had earned a certificate. 

Sarcasm, vituperation, threats, and, on rare 
occasions, a choice vocabulary of descriptive pro- 
fanity, were among the verbal missies aimed at 
the sugar staff. A fleshy negress had misstated 
the amount of previous consumption and when 
informed of this made the usual excuse, "Ah 
didn't know." She was informed that ignorance 
was no excuse, whereupon, she uncorked the vials 
of her wrath and aimed a volley of denunciation 
at the clerk that for rapidity of action and explosive 
quality was a vocal imitation of a machine gun. 
Her culminating declaration was: 

"I may be black an' you is white but I ain't 
no more ignoranter than what you is, if I is." 

Letters by the hundreds in every modern 
language, and every style of chirography were 
rained upon the division. One woman wrote a 
thirty-two page letter minutely describing the 
tortures suffered by the poor children in her 
neighborhood because she was not permitted to 
use more sugar for her "snowballs," a mixture of 
chopped ice, diluted flavoring, aniline dye and the 
impalpable dust of the street, which she dispensed 
for a penny each to the youngsters. Another 
recited the fact that a certain individual, giving 
his name, made it a daily practice of buying six 
cups of coffee so that he might get sugar enough 
for the two cups which he always drank at lunch- 
eon. A pathetic little note read: 

135 



"Dear Mr. Hoover: Can we have some sugar 
for Thanksgiving? We Uve on a farm and are 
going to have a big dinner and our pumpkins is 
ripe and say can we please have some sugar for 
pumpkin pie." 

A socially prominent woman in surprise and 
indignation appeared one day in response to a com- 
mand that she explain the possession of a barrel 
of sugar in her cellar while at the same time she 
was purchasing it from various grocers. She 
indignantly denied the accusation and attributed 
it to the malice of some designing acquaintance. 
The evidence was conclusive but the lady's counter 
assertion was so emphatic that she was finally 
asked if she would permit an inspector to visit 
her home and prove to her the fact. She gladly 
acquiesced and her surprise was beyond descrip- 
tion when the inspector, among twelve barrels of 
chinaware, pointed out one barrel of sugar. She 
was absolved from any design to deceive the Food 
Administration though technically guilty. The 
sugar had been delivered months before to her 
country home in New Jersey. When she returned 
to her city residence this barrel was forwarded 
with the barrels and boxes in which china and 
bric-a-brac were packed. The entire household was 
thrown into consternation and the woman's hus- 
band made a special appeal that they be spared 
publicity in view of all the circumstances. The 
discovery was made by a gas-meter inspector who 
found it necessary to move several barrels of china 

136 



to reach the meter and among them found the 
barrel of sugar barring his way. 

An instance of a deHberate attempt to hoard 
was that of a prominent Philadelphia family much 
given to philanthropy and charity. A discharged 
servant furnished the information. The wife was 
peremptorily ordered to appear at headquarters. 
She expressed great indignation; regarded the 
summons as an insult, etc., etc., but finally con- 
sented to permit an inspector to make an examina- 
tion. There was sugar hidden in coffee cans on 
the second floor, but of greatest interest was a 
beer keg concealed in the basement filled with 
sugar and sealed with paraffine. 

The ingenuity displayed in attempts to circum- 
vent the administrator and obtain excessive sup- 
plies was sometimes not only very clever but very 
amusing. An inspector visited a house in South 
Philadelphia in which a woman had claimed an 
allowance on the basis of eight in the family. 
What the inspector found was a woman, a recluse, 
with three dogs and four cats for her companions. 
The fact that the woman placed herself in the 
same category with dogs and cats did not procure 
for her the desired supply. 

In the preparation of a form upon which ap- 
peared the question, **How much sugar did you 
buy between January i, 1917, and July i, 1917?" 
was a statement that instantly aroused suspicion. 
The applicant was a Greek and an inspector was 
detailed to investigate the case. He found that 

137 



three Greeks had bought from each other the same 
amount of sugar, viz., 3,000 pounds each. They 
had at first purchased 4,000 pounds of sugar from 
a regular dealer but by a system of "kiteing"or 
exchanging checks they had made it appear that 
each had bought 3,000 pounds from the other or a 
total of 9,000 pounds including the extra 1,000 
pounds in the 4,000 originally purchased. If this 
scheme had escaped detection each of the three 
would have been entitled to 5,000 pounds of sugar 
for the first six months of 19 18 when actually he 
was entitled to but 2,000 pounds. 



138 



CHAPTER XIII 

HGW THE NEWSPAPERS HELPED. 

Over $S5o,cx)o Worth of Space Given Gratis 

TO the Work by the Nev^spapers of 

Pennsylvania. 

This is the story in brief of what the newspapers 
of the state did to help the Food Administration in 
its work: 

The Division of Press News was the outcome of 
an insistent demand on the part of the editors and 
pubUshers of Philadelphia for an efficient news 
service at State Administration Headquarters. In 
the earlier days there was a total lack of system 
in the dissemination of information. Reporters 
depended upon their news instinct and opportunity 
to get a story at the administration offices. An 
advertising writer employed by the division of 
education filled the gap for a couple of months, 
but with unsatisfactory results. In the midst of 
this dilemma Howard Heinz and Vice-Adminis- 
trator J. S. Crutchfield, called a meeting of leading 
Philadelphia journalists to discuss the critical 
situation that had arisen in connection with the 
introduction of wheat-flour substitutes. 

The meeting was held in Howard Heinz' office, 

139 



with J. S. Crutchfield, Jay Cooke and C. J. Hep- 
burn, Esq., representing the administration — Mr. 
Heinz being absent from the city — and on the part 
of the newspapers, E. A. Van Valkenburg, pub- 
lisher of the North American; J. J. Spurgeon, 
editor-in-chief, and E. J. Steriing, of the editorial 
staff of the Public Ledger; P. H. Whaley, editor- 
in-chief of the Evening Ledger; Herman L. Collins, 
editor-in-chief, and George Waite, of the editorial 
staff of the Telegraph; John P. Dwyer, editor-in- 
chief of the Record; Richard J. Beamish, managing 
editor of the Press; F. C. Whitecar, city editor of 
the Inquirer J and W. B. Craig, city editor of the 
Bulletin. Subsequent conferences were partici- 
pated in by David E. Smiley, who succeeded Mr. 
Whaley as editor-in-chief of the Evening Ledger; 
C. C. A. Baldi, publisher of UOpinione; W. A. 
Connor, manager of the Associated Press; Edward 
J. Hunter, city editor of the Public Ledger; James 
M. Bennett, of the Evening Ledger ^ and representa- 
tives of the Jewish newspapers. 

At this conference the officials frankly explained 
the seriousness of the food situation with regard 
to the available supply of flour and the necessity 
for immediate action to avert famine. It was 
instantly evident to the newspaper men that they 
had not been fully informed of the seriousness of 
the situation; that if the avenues of publicity 
possessed by them were to be made available 
intelligent co-operation with the administration 
must be established. This could be secured only 

140 




George Nox McCain 
Director Division of Press News 



by the organization of a Division of Press News 
under the direction of some one in whose honesty, 
judgment and fairness the newspapers could repose 
absolute confidence. 

Vice-Administrator Crutchfield suggested that 
the newspaper men select their own representative 
for the position who would be appointed a member 
of the State Administration and also a member of 
the Executive Council. A sub-committee consist- 
ing of E. A. Van Valkenburg, publisher of the 
North American; P. H. Waley, editor of the Public 
Ledger; J. E. Lewis, city editor of the Press; 
F. C. Whitecar, city editor of the Inquirer, and 
W. B. Craig, city editor of the Evening Bulletin, 
was named to select a chief for the new division, 
one with newspaper experience and training. 
At an adjourned conference at administration 
headquarters the name of Colonel George Nox 
McCain was unanimously accepted. 

George Nox McCain had had an experience of 
over thirty-five years in newspaper work in 
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia as city editor; as 
New York, Washington and foreign correspondent, 
and as editor and publisher of the Colorado 
Springs daily and Sunday Gazette. He was notified 
and accepted the appointment with the under- 
standing that he serve without compensation and 
be given the hearty support of the Philadelphia 
newspapers. 

On March 7, 191 8, the organization of the 
Division of Press News of the Federal Food 

141 



Administration in Pennsylvania was perfected 
x^ith Colonel McCain as director; the appointment 
was confirmed at Washington and he also, by 
appointment of Administrator Heinz, became a 
member of the Executive Council. The wisdom 
of the newspaper people in suggesting the organiza- 
tion of a press division was manifested immedi- 
ately. Every newspaper reporter at headquarters 
was supplied with the news of the day as to facts; 
their manner of presentment was left to the indi- 
vidual judgment of the reporter. 

Absolute impartiality was observed. Favorit- 
ism, "scoops," or special interviews with officials 
was discountenanced. Rigid rules in this regard 
were formulated for the reason that professional 
rivalry or individual interprise could not be 
permitted to interfere with the great work of 
keeping the public informed on food rulings. 
Every channel of newspaper publicity, from the 
day of the organization of the division until it was 
disbanded in February, 1919, was utilized for the 
dissemination of news and propaganda. The 
Associated Press, United Press, International and 
Hearst News Services were thrown open for tele- 
graphic matter of immediate news value. 

In Pittsburgh the daily newspapers were reached 
by a headquarters' telegraphic service, handled by 
J. K. Burnett, manager of the Tri-State News 
Bureau. Every important newspaper in the state 
was appealed to personally and its co-operation 
requested. The result was that 347 daily, weekly, 

142 



and semi-monthly newspapers pledged themselves 
in writing and faithfully observed their agreement. 
Out of the entire number of editors and publishers 
so addressed but one declined to co-operate. His 
reply was a vituperative arraignment of the Food 
Administration. The only charitable excuse for 
this unusual attitude was that of ill health for a 
news message three weeks later announced the 
death of the individual. 

The division originated a "Slip News" service 
to daily and weekly newspapers. This service 
released news throughout the state a day or two 
in advance of publication. The division acted as a 
clearing house in Pennsylvania for all the general 
news matter received from Washington. In a 
period of forty weeks, ending December 31st, 1918, 
twenty columns of slip news matter per paper were 
issued by the division, a total of 3,460 columns. 

In addition, 287 weekly and semi-weekly news- 
papers, and seventy-one daily newspapers, accepted 
the plate service, making a total of 534 newspapers 
publishing Food Administration news. This ratio 
maintained with slight change to the close of the 
activities of the division on December 31, 1918. 
Nineteen issues of plate matter were sent out, 
aggregating a total of thirty-two columns, to each 
of the 358 papers requesting it, making a total of 
11,456 columns. 

No record of the number of columns of local 
Food Administration news in the daily newspapers 
of Philadelphia prior to March, 191 8, had been 

143 



kept. A careful measurement made from the files 
of each newspaper shows that up to and including 
August I o, 191 8, 719 columns of Pennsylvania Food 
Administration news had been published by the 
Philadelphia newspapers. In the same period, 473 
columns of telegraphic matter, pertaining to the 
Federal Food Administration, were also published, 
exclusive of 1 1 2 editorials, twenty- two cartoons and 
fifty-five columns of Sunday specials. The total 
amount of Pennsylvania Food Administration news 
published by the Philadelphia newspapers up to 
December 31, 1918, was 1,230 columns, exclusive 
of telegraphic news, editorials and special articles. 

If computed on an advertising basis of straight 
reading matter, the value of this space would 
amount to over $550,000; and this does not 
represent the total contribution of Philadelphia 
newspapers to the Food Administration cause. 

No record was kept of the amount of space given 
over to Food Administration news by the daily 
newspapers of Pittsburgh, that being practically 
impossible, but on the most conservative estimate 
it amounted to hundreds of columns. The news- 
paper publishers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh 
co-operated in the heartiest and most patriotic 
manner with the Food Administration officials. 

In Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Erie, Harrisburg, 
Altoona and other of the smaller cities, the pub- 
lishers, like those of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, 
gave ungrudgingly of their space to the dissemina- 
tion of news and propaganda. 

144 



The work of the Food Administration in Penn- 
sylvania would have suffered to an extent not 
possible to determine, had not the newspaper 
editors and publishers of the state given to this 
great war activity their whole-souled support. 
One of the finest examples of unselfish patriotism 
in the history of Pennsylvania's war activities, 
was the work of the newspaper publishers who gave 
their space freely and without desire of reward. 



145 



CHAPTER XIV 

WOMAN'S WORK. 

What the Women Did — The Woman's Food 
Army of Philadelphia — How the Divi- 
sion OF Bakeries Operated. 

There was one division about whose work very 
little was heard, largely because it was performed 
in such an unostentatious manner: the Woman's 
Division, of which Mrs. Charles M. Lea was chief. 
Appreciating the commanding position that must 
be occupied by women in any food conservation 
measures, this division was among the first 
organized. The plan of organization was similar 
to that earlier adopted by the Committee of Public 
Safety and Council of National Defense. A 
woman chief was appointed in every county 
responsible to the county administrator but report- 
ing to the chief of the State Division in Philadel- 
phia. It was the first great universal organization 
of women in the state. 

In Philadelphia it took the form of a women's 
food army. In each county there was a central 
organization whose influence reached into every 
home. Among the features of this work were the 
organization over the state of community kitchens 

146 



and canning centers; demonstrations of baking 
with wheat-flour substitutes; promoting war gar- 
dens, and rendering assistance to those who desired 
information concerning the operation of food laws. 

The women's organization in Pennsylvania 
rendered untiring and invaluable service in its 
contact with large and small groups of women, 
with the homes of the people direct, and with both 
the native and foreign elements in our population. 
With the last named its influence for good was 
most potent and of the highest importance. 

In addition to the above, the women's organiza- 
tion in nearly every county took practical charge 
of the propaganda in public schools and private 
homes. Women speakers addressed meetings 
everywhere. They distributed literature, sugar 
certificates and home cards. Genuine enthusiasm 
was aroused and women's influence and example 
in food conservation was the mightiest lever that 
the administration possessed. 

The story of the women's food army in Phila- 
delphia is the record of one of the most remarkable 
movements ever inaugurated in the state. 

During the spring of 191 8, Jay Cooke, adminis- 
trator for Philadelphia, felt that there should be 
more personal connection between the Food Admin- 
istration and the people it needed to reach; for, 
although newspapers carried the food regulations 
faithfully, yet it seemed necessary to have a direct 
message given to the housekeepers at frequent 
intervals. 

147 



By the ist of June, 1918, the woman's division 
of Philadelphia County, had so greatly increased 
under the leadership of its volunteer director, Mrs. 
Harry C. Boden, that the activities of the executive 
secretary fell in two lines: (i) conservation by all 
possible means and (2) the organizing and conduct 
of the body of women known as the Philadelphia 
Food Army. 

It was decided to organize Philadelphia women 
on an army basis. Mr. Cooke was in command of 
the Philadelphia Food Army; Miss B. K. Van 
Slyke and Mrs. Edith Blank captains, and the 
leader of each ward, lieutenant; the leader of each 
political division or small group of divisions was 
sergeant; the representative of the Food Adminis- 
tration, corporal; the privates being the citizens 
in the block. 

Each member of the army was given an insignia. 
The insignia was a piece of blue felt, about two and 
a half by five inches, bearing the seal of the Food 
Administration at the top and at the bottom bars 
denoting rank. The corporal's insignia had two 
bars of red, the sergeant's three and the lieutenant's 
one straight bar of gold. 

As something definite on which to start the army 
to work, a special bulletin was prepared to be 
distributed during the first week of each month, 
the bulletin to be changed as the food regulations 
changed. 

The army at the time of the armistice consisted 
of 3,7CX) women as follows : Thirty-five lieutenants, 

148 



3 so to 400 sergeants and the remainder corporals. 
In other conservation work of the woman's 
division much progress was made. In all over 
fifty factory talks on conservation, sometimes 
accompanied by demonstrations where facilities 
were adequate, sometimes made more graphic by 
the distribution among the audience of samples of 
food discussed, were given during the summer in 
response to a circular letter sent out from this 
department. The talks themselves were given by 
expert demonstrators from the State College. 

The work of women at headquarters was untir- 
ingly efficient. Miss McCombs as executive secre- 
tary did, until she resigned, admirable work. Miss 
Ellen Brinton, for the Division of Distribution and 
Markets, reported by day and by night the receipts 
of foodstuffs at the various markets of the city, 
often at great personal inconvenience. 

The scores of women clerks, secretaries, copy- 
ists, typists and even the young girls in the filing 
rooms did their work with unflagging energy and 
a patriotic zeal distinctive of the highest type of 
American womanhood. 

The women teachers in the eleven thousand 
Sunday schools in the state supplemented their 
work on weekdays by their influence and instruc- 
tion on Sundays. Every child in a Sunday school 
class under the care of a patriotic Christian woman 
became an evangel of food conservation. 

The work in the Sunday schools of the state was 
perfectly organized and thoroughly systematized 

149 



under the direction of W. G. Landes, state super- 
intendent of sabbath schools, who acted as chief 
of that division. The first request for active work 
on the part of the state association was in the 
fall of 19 1 7, when the administration was preparing 
to launch a nation-wide campaign of publicity in 
saving food. 

In Pennsylvania the Sunday schools are organ- 
ized under district associations, and the districts, 
in turn, under county associations. There are 
sixty-seven county organizations and over nine 
hundred district organizations. The plan of the 
Food Administration and the Pennsylvania State 
Sabbath School Association involved the visitation 
of every Sunday school in Pennsylvania on a 
certain Sunday in November, 191 7. The state 
association sent out literature and letters to every 
Sunday school superintendent and also to every 
district association, so that on the Sunday desig- 
nated there were visitors in almost every Sunday 
school in the state, urging the claims to food con- 
servation. As near as the state association could 
estimate it, there were in the neighborhood of four 
thousand four-minute men making conservation 
addresses and appeals on that day. 

A similar campaign was carried out by the state 
association on the first Sunday in December, 191 8. 
By this time the war was over, but the drive was 
entered into with as much enthusiasm as was that 
of 191 7, and a like success was achieved. There 
were in the neighborhood of forty to sixty thousand 

150 




Fred C Haller 
Chief Bakeries Division 



J. E. Bacon 

Secretary Sugar Division 



letters sent to pastors and superintendents in 
Pennsylvania and almost every Sunday school in 
the state was visited by Sunday school officials in 
the more than nine hundred district associations. 

Late in the spring of 1918 there was wide-spread 
violation of food rules in the baking trade, due not 
so much to a desire to evade the law as to ignorance 
concerning the use of wheat-flour substitutes and 
the difficulty of securing supplies. A campaign of 
education was determined upon and Fred C. 
Haller, of Pittsburgh, who had been identified with 
the Allegheny County Food Administration, was 
appointed chief of a newly created Division of 
Bakeries. 

Mr. Haller established an office at headquarters 
in Philadelphia, visited every county in the state 
appointing county lieutenants and service boards, 
organized the bakers and in public meetings and 
conferences, being a technical trade expert and 
chemist himself, gave instructions as to the most 
satisfactory and economical methods of using 
substitutes. 

A change in conditions became manifest at once. 
There were fewer complaints of ruined bread, and 
the bakers of the state evinced an eagerness to 
co-operate with Mr. Haller in every way. To his 
educational work is due the subsequent efficiency 
of the trade. Large modern bakeries opened their 
doors to smaller members of the craft and demon- 
strated to them their methods of baking "Victory'* 
bread, as the wheat-flour substitute product was 

151 



called. Such a thing was never known before. 
The fact that the bakeries of the state supplied 
over fifty per cent of the bread consumed as food 
is evidence that Mr. Haller's division conserved 
over fifty per cent of the wheat flour that was saved 
in Pennsylvania for shipment to our armies and 
allies abroad. 

Co-operation was carried to the extent that no 
change in the price of bread was permitted until 
after full investigation and complete report of the 
facts had been favorably passed upon by the state 
chief and the local county administrator; standard 
weights of loaves were closely adhered to, and the 
practices of the return of stale bread and the 
delivery of fresh bread several times daily aban- 
doned. 

Mr. Haller visited the different counties fre- 
quently and kept in close touch with the different 
county administrators and maintained a spirit of 
co-operation through a series of meetings of the 
entire baking trade in the county seats of the vari- 
ous counties. There was thus established a spirit 
of harmony throughout the state, which was main- 
tained during the life of the administration, 
although the sudden abandonmentof the substitute 
program after the signing of the armistice caused 
considerable inconvenience among the bakers who 
had stocks of substitutes on hand. 

In most counties the bakers' organization patri- 
otically financed the work of their own lieutenants, 
in order that it might be carried on vigorously 

152 



without any financial support whatever from the 
administration. 

The quiet, persuasive, convincing manner of 
Fred C. Haller, coupled with his intimate knowl- 
edge of every phase of the trade, inspired the 
bakers of the state with confidence, while the 
admirable results achieved by his division through 
his intelligent activity were evidence of his personal 
worth and high professional ability. 

Not only was the conservation of flour and other 
foods necessary to the gigantic task of winning 
the war, but it was imperatively necessary to 
increase the supply of grain and prevent, in every 
way, the careless waste of the years of peace. 

It was in this connection that Charles Garber 
was appointed threshermen's assistant for Penn- 
sylvania. His activities extended throughout the 
threshing season. While this division might appear 
to be not of great importance, yet it was one of 
the most efficient and remarkably effective depart- 
ments in the whole work of the Food Adminis- 
tration. 

It was the duty of Mr. Garber to visit every 
section of the state, get in contact with farmers 
and threshermen, and as a practical man point out 
to them the source of waste in grain from the time 
it is in the shock until it is in the bushel. There are 
thousands of threshing machines in Pennsylvania ; 
in some counties as high as from twelve hundred 
to fourteen hundred of the smaller threshing 
machines. Out of a crop of twenty-two million 

153 



bushels of wheat in the state, it was estimated by 
Mr. Garber that five per cent of this was a saving. 
In his experience among the farmers, Mr. Garber 
could frequently show a loss of as much as three 
pints to every two and a half bushels of grain 
threshed and this was done by making some small 
adjustment in the machinery. If the division of 
grain threshing did no more than demonstrate to 
the farmers of Pennsylvania how they could save 
grain that otherwise would go to loss, it accom- 
plished a great mission. 

In the early summer of 191 8 E. Lawrence Fell 
was appointed Director of the Division of Com- 
mercial Economy, which was then newly organized. 
Its object was to impress upon the retail merchants 
of the state the necessity for economy in the distri- 
bution of commodities to customers. To this end 
a campaign was begun in the large cities for a de- 
livery only once a day instead of three or four 
times, as had been the custom. 

Customers were urged to purchase food on the 
"cash and carry'' basis particularly, and thus save 
the extra expense of delivery. There was con- 
siderable opposition to both propositions, particu- 
larly in the large cities, but eventually the plan 
was adopted with considerable success. In several 
counties of the state merchants combined, and 
instead of having separate deliveries instituted the 
unit system, whereby one set of wagons for all 
retailers was used in distribution. This work was 

154 



still in process of active extension when the armis- 
tice was signed. 

The necessity of co-ordinating the work of all 
educational activities interested in food conserva- 
tion was made manifest during the summer of 
191 8. There was college work, public school work, 
parochial school work and a number of other 
educational forces which it seemed required closer 
co-ordination and efficient team work, though the 
food conservation effected through these separate 
channels had been very efficient. Dr. William 
McClellan, dean of the Wharton School of Finance 
of the University of Pennsylvania, was appointed 
chief of this division, which was known as that of 
Co-ordinated Educational Activities. Its work 
was just beginning when the armistice was declared. 
Extensive plans had been made, but the ending 
of the war put an abrupt finish to them. 



155 



CHAPTER XV 

INTERESTING EPISODES. 

The Boy from the Mountain, and Other Odd 

Stories from the Interior of Old 

Berks and Luzerne. 

Back in the remote fastnesses of what are known 
as the Cumberland Mountains, where Berks and 
Lebanon meet, resided a boy of fourteen. Some- 
where, in the early days of the war, he had read 
that everyone could do something, no matter how 
little, to help win the war; that even boys and 
girls could render valuable assistance, in reporting 
"slackers" or those who refused to observe the 
food laws. A few weeks later the Enforcement 
Division of the Food Administration in Washing- 
ton forwarded to Charles J. Hepburn, Esq., chief 
counsel for Pennsylvania, a letter from a boy in 
Berks County. In the routine course of such 
matters the communication was forwarded to 
Administrator Davies, headquarters, Reading. 

The letter, in the untrained hand of a school 
boy, told how a certain miller in the Berks Moun- 
tains was violating the food laws by selling flour 
without substitutes and otherwise disregarding the 
mandates of the government. The administrator 

156 



drove in his car to the home of the writer. It 
required a day to go and return over the narrow 
unfrequented roads of the district. Difficulty was 
experienced locating the author of the communica- 
tion. At farm houses where inquiries were made, 

people knew of William Z but no one of the 

name of Albert Z . It subsequently developed 

that the boy, whole heartedly and passionately 
American, had voluntarily changed his name. He 
insisted upon being known as Albert. Baptized 
William he regarded it as a German cognomen, 
while Albert was Belgian, the name of its heroic 
king. 

There was consternation at the farm house of 
the boy over the arrival of the administrator. In 
a flutter, the mother announced that the official 
must cut short his interview with the lad. His 
father was expected any moment. The latter who 
was violently pro-German, as was later discovered, 
had frequently whipped the boy for his outspoken 
loyalty to his country. 

Two weeks later, a tired woe-begone little chap 
with dusty shoes, appeared at the office of the 

administrator in Reading. It was Albert Z , 

the boy of the mountains. After repeated beatings, 
his father had driven him from home upon learning 
that he was the author of the letter about the 
unpatriotic miller. The facts were instantly com- 
municated over long distance 'phone to the Legal 
Department at Philadelphia. The instructions from 
Chief Counsel Hepburn were terse and emphatic: 

157 



"Send the boy back home with a letter to the 
father notifying him if there is any repetition of 
this offense, or if he punishes the boy in any way 
for expressions of loyalty, that the full power of 
the government will be directed against him in a 
manner that he will remember for the remainder 
of his Hfe." 

That night the little patriot was cared for by 
the Y. M. C. A. in Reading. The following day he 
was sent back home. His pro-German father read 
between the lines of the letter a new interpre- 
tation of the word "patriotism.*' The boy's 
letters to Mr. Davies subsequently informed him 
that he had escaped further punishment. On his 
last visit to the administrator prior to the begin- 
ning of the school year of 191 8, he was radiantly 
happy over the prospect of going to a Normal 
school. His father had abandoned his pro-Hun 
attitude and, apparently, was reconciled to the 
fact that he was an American citizen. 

Berks County has over 220,000 population. 
There are something like 822 retail establishments 
doing business within its borders ; there are scores 
of millers and hundreds of butchers; it is, more- 
over, the center of the Pennsylvania Dutch influ- 
ence in the commonwealth. Charles E. Davies, 
federal food administrator, is himself of Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch ancestry for generations, yet now 
and again during his career some one of his people 
led him into perplexities beyond his experience. 

Among the throng of visitors at his office one 

158 



day during the sugar conservation period, when 
the monthly allotment was at its minimum, was a 
woman whose face showed worry and impatience 
over the delay in reaching the administrator. 
When finally admitted she made an impassioned 
appeal in trembling voice for an extra allowance 
of sugar. Her family had been observing the law, 
"but in case of a funeral," which is always a 
matter of community interest and sympathy 
among the Pennsylvania Germans and is invari- 
ably accompanied with a bounteous dinner, she 
felt an exception should be made. 

"How many persons do you expect at the 
funeral?" inquired the administrator. 

"About two hundred," she replied in mournful 
tone. 

"Very well! FU give you a certificate at once 
that will entitle you to enough sugar for the 
purpose." 

"But, I don't want it now," was the surprising 
reply. 

"How soon will you need it?" 

"In about a month, I guess," she replied without 
any visible embarrassment. 

"Oh, I see," replied Mr. Davies, with compas- 
sionate sympathy. "The death was at a distance 
and the body will not arrive for some time." 

"No, no," the woman hastily interjected. "You 
see, my husband has been sick for three months 
and the doctors say he won't get well, but they 
think he will live for a month yet. He is a good 

159 



man and has always been free handed in providing 
for me and I want to have plenty of sugar for his 
funeral." 

The story was a headliner for the next day's 
Reading newspapers. One of the reporters closed 
a half column recital of the incident with the 
paragraph: 

'*Mr. Davies was still fanning himself with a 
sugar certificate and wiping a moist brow when 
the woman departed." 

So rigorously were the sugar conservation rulings 
observed by the grocers of Reading that Miss 
Taylor, a member of a staff of experts who were 
demonstrating the use of flour substitutes, was 
unable, after vainly tramping the heart of the 
business district for over an hour, to purchase a 
pound of sugar. She finally appealed to the admin- 
istrator to secure a supply suflScient to give a 
demonstration at a woman*s meeting the following 
day. 

There was in Berks, as was the case in other 
counties, considerable resentment in certain sec- 
tions over Administrator Davies' enforcement of 
the flour conservation order. Nowhere was this 
more openly expressed than in the little town of 
Fleetwood. A clergyman of the vicinity had the 
courage to write the administrator advising him 
of the feeling that existed in the community and 
expressed the friendly opinion that it might be 
advisable for him to avoid that section. Through 
a cooperate war activity a Red Cross meeting was 

160 



instantly arranged for Fleetwood, and accompanied 
only by his wife the administrator attended. It 
was an open air gathering. Curiosity to see and 
to hear the man whose name was a synonym for 
decisive action was a potent factor in drawing a 
crowd. 

*'I did that night what I had never done before," 
said Mr. Davies. "When I stepped forward to 
speak I announced that I proposed to sing before 
I began to speak.'' Incidentally, Mr. Davies is 
the possessor of a fine baritone voice. "While I 
sing I want you to join with me. Moreover, I 
want you to take a good look at me. I shall stand 
so that you can see me from every side, because 
I wish to convince you that I am simply a man after 
the fashion of your own husbands, brothers and 
sons, some of whom, possibly, are fighting in the 
trenches of France." 

There was not an unseemly word, jest or jeer 
as he began singing "Over There." After a little 
hesitancy the crowd joined in the chorus. "My 
Country, 'Tis of Thee" followed and then the 
"Star Spangled Banner." Before the musical 
program had been completed everybody was sing- 
ing. Then the administrator began his talk; he 
explained in a conversational way why the National 
Food Administration was in business; why it was 
necessary to save flour to send to the half-starved 
Allies and to the boys in the trenches. It was at 
this meeting that Mr. Davies voiced a slogan that 
was heard at nearly every subsequent food meeting: 

161 



"Why eat pie at the end of a meal when the 
boys 'over there' haven't bread with which to 
commence a meal." 

A few days later a delegation of citizens from 
Fleetwood vicinity called on the administrator 
and asked to be appointed a committee to see 
that the food laws were enforced. 

Davies of Berks was an administrator whose 
originality of method, tenacity of purpose, and 
effectiveness in obtaining results awakened an 
interest in the executive council that was not 
surpassed even by the variety of unusual episodes 
that were of daily occurrence at headquarters. 
And this was not because of the proximity of Mr. 
Davies' field of effort to Philadelphia ; rather it was 
the personality of the individual, his overflowing 
vitality, his serene confidence in ultimate results. 
His personal appearance suggested force and 
decision of character. Of middle height, regular 
but prominent features, iron-gray hair, closely 
cut around the temples and back, and blue eyes 
sheltered by rimless spectacles, Mr. Davies im- 
pressed one as a business man with a capacity for 
work that was practically limitless. Upon his 
appointment as food administrator for Berks he 
turned over his business, that of a hosiery manu- 
facturer, to a competent employee and in the 
ensuing nine months visited his offices less than a 
dozen times. His devotion finally impaired his 
health. That the Food Administration might not 
be deprived of his advice, suggestion, and experi- 

162 



ence, Davies, after a month's rest, was brought to 
Philadelphia and made a member of Administra- 
tor Heinz's headquarter staff as field agent for 
the state. 

One of the finest stories that came out of Berks 
County was that in which the various orphan 
homes were the recipients of a beautiful and 
practically expressed charity. A baker in Ham- 
burg, by the name of Seaman, telephoned that a 
batch of bread baked with substitutes had gone 
wrong — six hundred loaves in all — and while it was 
palatable and fit for food, yet it was not such as 
he could offer to his customers. The Bethany 
Orphanage at Womelsdorf is a practical Christian 
institution. The older children do all of the work 
that is possible for them to do, among other things 
assisting in the bakery. 

Mr. Seaman was informed that if he so desired 
he could donate the bread to the Bethany orphans' 
home. He did so, for it was of a quality higher 
than it was possible to bake under existing condi- 
tions at the institution. Mr. Davies, a few days 
later, suggested to the superintendent of the insti- 
tution that a letter of thanks from the children be 
sent Mr. Seaman. A letter from the children went 
forward which made such an impression upon the 
baker that he immediately informed the food 
administrator that he proposed thereafter to send 
every month to the Bethany home a supply of 
bread suflScient for one day. The story got abroad 
among the big hearted bakers of Reading. Steps 

163 



were taken to see how other asylums and homes 
were being cared for during the difficult flour 
substitute period. Committees were appointed 
who not only regularly supplied gratis at fixed 
intervals a certain amount of bread to these 
institutions, but experts were sent to every home 
to instruct those in charge of the bakery depart- 
ment in the proper methods of making bread with 
flour substitutes. 

The detailed operations of the Food Administra- 
tion in Luzerne County have the characteristics 
of a vast combined governmental and industrial 
concern, with millions of dollars of capital at its 
command, rather than a civilian organization 
based upon a plan of voluntary co-operation 
with no overhead charges or managerial salaries 
in connection with its operation. 

No administrator in the state was compelled to 
deal with a more diverse population than William 
O. Washburn; the population approximating 
400,000 people drawn from all quarters of the globe. 
To reach its diversified elements it was found 
necessary to distribute thousands of pamphlets, 
circulars of instruction and appeals, in English, 
Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, Italian and Hungarian. 
At the beginning of his administration W. O. 
Washburn, sturdy of frame, direct of speech, far- 
seeing in visualizing the demand that would be 
made upon him, determined to attack the subject 
of food conservation in mass formation. In 
February, 191 8, he organized a mass meeting of 

164 




W. O. Washburn 

Administrator for Luzerne County 



R. P. Brodhead 

Deputy Administrator for 

Luzerne County 



farmers, merchants, and business men generally, 
at which the objects of the administration were 
clearly defined. Enthusiasm was aroused to a 
high pitch and in a telegram forwarded to Howard 
Heinz, state food administrator in Philadelphia, 
they pledged their unqualified support. 

Statistics are usually uninteresting but those 
relating to the sugar distribution in Luzerne are 
illuminating. Certificates issued for manufacturing 
purposes amounted to 1,132,870 pounds; 3,941,756 
for household uses including hotels and restaurants, 
and 2,927,175 pounds for canning purposes. 

"In all probability there has never been so 
much vegetables and fruit prepared for consump- 
tion by individual families as there was this year,'' 
declares Mr. Washburn. The observation seems like 
an echo of the administrator of Crawford County 
of "apple butter enough to float a battle-ship." 

In addition there was voluntarily contributed 
to the Red Cross on the part of those who had vio- 
lated administration rules ^2,901.60; War Savings 
and Thrift Stamps were purchased to the amount 
of ^3,080; Liberty Bonds, ^150; contributed to 
the United States War Fund, ^1,297, making a 
total of ^7,428.60. And then, as the climax of the 
administrator's efforts, $300,000 worth of War 
Saving and Thrift Stamps were sold through his 
office, a considerable amount of this by agents of 
the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. 

The oflSice on request distributed over 2,000 
recipes for bread making and sugar conservation. 

165 



It distributed 1,500 Red Cross posters asking 
that peach stones and nut shells be salvaged for 
the manufacture of gas masks for our soldiers 
abroad. With a great demand for coal it was im- 
possible for miners to leave their work, but under 
the persuasive appeals of Mr. Washburn and his 
Chief Deputy R. P. Brodhead during October and 
November, 1918, hundreds of business men in 
Wilkes-Barre went out into the country districts 
to assist in harvesting vegetables and fruits. 

R. P. Brodhead, chief deputy administrator, who 
directed with marked efficiency much of the detail 
work of the administration, is a native of East 
Mauch Chunk. He was educated in the public 
schools in that place and completed a business 
course at Wyoming Seminary. He became a 
bookkeeper for a lumber firm and subsequently a 
salesman; then entered the railroad contracting 
work and for twenty years was engaged in that 
business. He had just completed fifteen years in 
the wholesale meat and oil business in Wilkes- 
Barre when this country entered the World War, 
and from the beginning to the end he devoted his 
time exclusively to the work of deputy food admin- 
istrator, as a volunteer, to the exclusion of all 
other interests. 

The background of success to Mr. Washburn's 
administration were years of efficient work as an 
organizer in various parts of the United States and 
in Canada, added to which was an inherent 
courtesy and broad experience of the world. 

166 



CHAPTER XVI 

STRIKING PERSONALITIES. 

Williams of Northampton, Dorwart of Perry, 

LOCKHART OF WASHINGTON AND BeLIN 

OF Lackawanna. 

Despite the fact that he was interested in manu- 
facturing enterprises whose output amounted to 
milHons per annum, with clay beds, quarries, and 
mines scattered over the United States, with two 
branch manufactories in different parts of the 
country, and cargoes of raw material en route from 
Persia, Turkey, France, Spain and Northern 
Africa, Charles K. Williams of Easton, barred by 
age from military service, was eager somehow to 
'^do his bit'* for his Country. His opportunity 
came when, at the suggestion of leading business 
and professional men of Northampton, his name 
was suggested to Howard Heinz as the most 
suitable man to undertake the work of food 
administrator for that county. A few months 
before, Albert Brodhead had been appointed 
administrator, but owing to pressure of private 
business had been compelled to resign. 

A new impetus was given to the work of the 
Food Administration in Northampton County the 

167 



instant Williams put his hand to the wheel. As a 
business man in Easton put it: "Things started on 
the jump from the day he took hold." And why 
shouldn't they? He had spent nearly all his life 
in Easton. The people had seen his manufactur- 
ing establishment grow from a diminutive mill, 
with a business office 8 by lo, to possibly the largest 
concern of its kind in the United States. The 
plant in all its ramifications up in Easton covers 
nearly one hundred acres. 

This does not have any direct bearing upon the 
question of food administration in Northampton 
County, but it is an indication of the kind of men 
that were chosen by Howard Heinz to fill important 
positions. As in the case of all men who have made 
a success C. K. Williams, I found, was adverse to 
discussing his own affairs. Indeed, I found this 
the case with all members of the administration 
from headquarter chiefs down, and it may be 
remarked en passant, that the most of anecdotal 
and unusual information herein contained was 
secured from sources, in many cases, far removed 
from the individual. 

Administrator Williams is a good type from the 
standpoint of physiognomy of the successful 
county administrator. They were nearly all 
smooth shaven, with high forehead, hair tinged with 
gray, dark brown or blue eyes, prominent nose, 
square, sometimes prognathous, chin with lines of 
experience on cheek and brow; in eight cases out 
of ten they wore glasses, spoke slowly and con- 

168 




it^m^mf 



C. K. Williams 
Administrator for Northampton County 



cisely and rarely about their work except to ask 
questions to which the answers would clarify per- 
plexing problems. This composite picture answers 
for C. K. Williams; only as he talks about his 
work does his face lighten up with a smile. 

It was the duty of Administrator Williams to 
penalize the strangest business combination ever 
reported to the Food Administration in the state. 
A firm of bakers was reported as not complying 
with the flour substitute rules. The complaint 
was promptly investigated with this result: 

The firm consisted of two brothers, apparently 
not German for their name was English, who car- 
ried on a baking business in a modest way. One 
was a deaf mute and the other could neither read 
nor write. The deaf mute was the baker and the 
illiterate member of the firm conducted the 
purchase, sales and delivery department. They 
kept no books. In his illiterate way, but with a 
shrewdness scarcely credible, the financial end of 
the firm carried all his purchases of supplies, sales 
of products, credits and receipts tucked away in a 
corner of his brain without the assistance of pen, 
' ink or paper. It was a revelation which was made 
still more astonishing by the declaration of the 
latter that if they had been permitted to carry on 
business as they had been doing they could have 
retired "well fixed at the end of six months." But 
the capable hand of the administrator enveloped 
them. There was an enormous demand for their 
product because they used no substitutes beyond 

169 



a few potatoes. They had no wagon delivery 
service. The bread and cakes were deHvered in 
early morning and after dark by the financier of 
the firm in a huge basket on either arm. They 
had been getting on for twenty years but never 
with the success that followed the flour substitute 
rules. They were closed for thirty days. 

A new and original business point of view devel- 
oped in Mr. Williams' work; he had never encoun- 
tered it before, though it had been particularly 
commented upon at headquarters. It was the 
lack of business efficiency; the devil-may-care 
manner in which ordinarily shrewd business men 
conducted their affairs; the total lack of order, 
absence of careful accounting, and ignorance of 
their daily business standing as to profit and loss. 
It was a similar experience in Philadelphia that 
led H. G. Stockwell,Chief of the Division of Audits, 
to plan revolutionary changes in the retail trade. 
This prevalent condition was illustrated in the case 
of a baker doing a large business in Easton who 
was called on to appear before the administrator; 
by the same mail another baker within a block 
was summoned to appear at the same day and 
hour. The latter answered the summons, the 
former did not. It was subsequently discovered 
that the first mentioned baker had not opened his 
mail for five days and was overcome with fear 
when he fished out the notice from a mass of 
unopened correspondence. 

Another development of the work in Northamp- 

170 



ton County was the care and painstaking intrigue 
of certain of the smaller dealers to evade the food 
laws. The same amount of effort directed in the 
right line would have saved them no end of trouble 
and stamped them as patriots instead of "slackers." 

The administration of C. K. Williams was a 
success because his business career forecast this 
when he became administrator. He made a 
study, as I subsequently learned, of the psychology 
of the masses. It was a psychology of the masses 
that made Howard Heinz's administration in 
Pennsylvania a success. The effort to lead and 
direct rather than drive or force. "This is a 
republic, not an absolute monarchy" was a con- 
crete expression of the thought in mind. 

If the doctrine of metempsychosis, the trans- 
migration of souls, of which Pythagoras and 
Plato were the leading exponents among the 
ancient philosophers, were accepted as orthodox 
belief in the Christian world today, then it would be 
a foregone conclusion that the Rev. William Dor- 
wart, administrator for Perry County, must have 
been in previous existence a Waldensian champion 
in the valleys of southeastern France, a preacher 
of the faith of Wycliff e and Huss, or a leader in the 
ecclesiastical fray when the banner of revolt was 
raised against Charles II in the days when impu- 
dent royalty flaunted its vices and extravagances in 
the face of England and Scotland's best blood. 

Rev. William Dorwart of Newport is a fine type 
of the militant Christian; otherwise he would not 

171 



have undertaken the work he did as a food admin- 
istrator. Broad of shoulders and broad in char- 
acter and principles, he performed a work that 
men of less sturdy frame and weaker moral 
courage would have hesitated to undertake. It 
is no light turn of a complimentary pen to say that 
his strong face with lines that suggest will to do, 
is an index of his character. And this disposition 
to battle for the right he has transmitted to his 
sons, Captain Frederick Griffin Dorwart, an aviator 
and instructor in the United States Army, and 
Lieutenant George Marks Dorwart, who received 
his baptism of fire at St. Mihiel, and was severely 
wounded on that historic field. 

Mr. Dorwart is the only federal food adminis- 
trator that Perry County had. He was all she 
needed. To Administrator Dorwart the govern- 
ment, through headquarters in Philadelphia, said, 
"Do thou thus and so." And he did it. Result- 
antly at one period in his administration nearly a 
third of the flour mills in his district were closed 
for violation of food regulations. To be exact, 
there were eighteen mills in the county and at one 
time or another seven of them were out of business. 
It must have gradually dawned upon those who 
were disposed to flaunt, or regard with indifference, 
the mandates of the government that the gentle- 
man in charge of its food conservation rules in 
Perry County was an official who brooked neither 
evasion, argument nor subterfuge, for long before 

172 



the armistice was signed intentional violators had 
bowed to the inevitable. 

That oxidized old axiom that "time and tide 
wait for no man" found its exemplification in the 
Perry County administrator. He ignored physical 
obstacles, as was shown in one case that called 
for immediate action. He reached his objective, 
eighteen miles away, after starting from his ofBce 
in an automobile, which was abandoned for a 
buggy when the roads became impassable and when 
the mountain snowdrifts held up the buggy he 
secured a sleigh and completed his mission. 

Among the unlettered or wilfully spiteful there 
were those who at one time or another refused to 
recognize either his official position or his indi- 
viduality. An odd commentary on the un-American 
or pro-German vindictiveness of the food slacker 
was displayed in attacks upon Rev. Dorwart who, 
being an Episcopal clergyman, was a shining mark 
for this breed of contemptibles. All sorts of 
stories derogatory to his character as a Christian 
and a gentleman were bred in the devious by-ways 
of gossip. There was one too good to keep that 
afforded vast amusement for other harassed admin- 
istrators when related at one of the conferences in 
Philadelphia. It was this: 

A wooden case of suspicious dimensions arrived 
in the administrator's home town of Newport. A 
few hours later the express agent called at the office 
of the administrator to notify him to come at once 
to the station and remove a box of Bibles addressed 

173 



to him. It was leaking. Another invention was 
that the administrator was alleged to have gone 
to a farmer's house in search of contraband sugar. 
After concluding the search of the cellar he 
ascended to the living room, where he was accosted 
by the farmer's wife with the inquiry as to who 
he was.? He enlightened her on his official posi- 
tion, upon which she retorted : 

**You may finish the apple you are eating but 
take those you have in your pockets back to the 
cellar." 

Another fabrication intended to discredit, but 
which failed of its purpose, was that the adminis- 
trator was to be arrested for violation of a govern- 
ment postal regulation. These were the circum- 
stances that led to the knave's tale: 

The administrator had a conference one night 
with the grocers of Marysville and vicinity at eight 
o'clock. It being light at this hour of the evening, 
Mr. Dorwart, who had gone to the meeting in his 
automobile, did not turn on his lamps. The con- 
ference adjourned about 9.20, when the town 
constable who, it may have been was a type of the 
vaudeville variety, appeared and with declamatory 
eloquence notified the administrator that he was 
fined five dollars for failing to have his automobile 
lights going. One of the grocers present insisted 
on paying the fine, which the administrator declined 
to permit him to do. The following morning Mr. 
Dorwart received an envelope with a five dollar 
bill enclosed. It evidently was from the courteous 

174 





Wm T. Griffith 

Administrator for 

Clinton County 



Dorr R. Cobb 

Administrator for 

Potter County 




P. N. Hershey 
Administrator for 
Lebanon County 



Rev. William Dorwart 
Administrator for Perry County 



friend of the night previous, and the money was 
returned. The same day the fine was paid by the 
administrator's check which inadvertently was 
sent in a franked envelope. Some one acquainted 
with this circulated the story of his prospective 
arrest for violating the government postal laws. 
To the credit of Marysville's minor judiciary the 
check was returned to the administrator a month 
later, with the statement that **an error of judg- 
ment'* had been committed. 

Rev. Dorwart, like many other administrators in 
the state, was the victim of the most contemptible 
charge of all, viz., that he had hoarded in his own 
home barrels of flour and sugar. It was the 
commonest form of pro-German attack upon 
members of the administration. 

The same libel was whispered against Jay Cooke, 
administrator for Philadelphia. Efforts were 
made to trace the story to its source, but they failed, 
and after a while, as all such things do, largely 
because the lie was laughed at, it died a disowned 
death. An interesting phase of this slacker inven- 
tion was, that at the very time it was in circulation 
Mr. Cooke was enforcing administration rules upon 
his own household to the extent of insisting that 
each member of his family and each servant have 
his or her own individual sugar bowl. Each bowl 
was filled once a week with a seven days allowance 
and when it was exhausted could not be refilled 
until the expiration of the seven day period. 

The individual sugar bowl was one of the best 

175 



pieces of newspaper propaganda put forth during 
the sugar-saving period, but it was not publicly 
known at the time that this clever idea which was 
adopted by thousands of patriotic families in 
Pennsylvania, had its inception and experimental 
workout in the home of the Philadelphia food 
administrator. 

It is unnecessary to say that the vast bulk of 
the population of Perry County stood loyally 
behind its administrator. The few furnished 
exceptions as noted above. In the crucial test, 
the flour registration period, out of a possible 
4,800 returns over 4,000 were made to the office 
of the administrator. With one exception it was 
the completest return made in the entire state. 

Administrator James L. Lockhart of Washington 
County with headquarters in Washington, the seat 
of Washington and Jefferson College, had the unique 
experience of receiving a letter from a resident of 
a distant part of the county enclosing four dollars, 
with the urgent request that he forward a dog license 
by return mail. Mr. Lockhart, a personage with 
abundance of patience, good nature, and a keen 
sense of humor, might have appreciated more 
highly the ludicrous character of the incident had 
he not discovered that the writer was an ignorant 
foreigner with an exaggerated idea of a food admin- 
istrator's power. 

The course of administration work in Wash- 
ington County, whose people are above the aver- 
age in patriotism and intelligence, considering 

176 



that the coal and oil industries attract a large 
foreign population, followed lines similiar to those 
in other counties. Although in the southwestern 
part of the state, hundreds of miles distant from 
Philadelphia headquarters, Administrator Lock- 
hart attended State Conferences regularly and 
followed with unfailing diligence and good judg- 
ment the rules and regulations almost daily pro- 
mulgated by the government through State 
Administrator Heinz, with the result that his 
official record was of the highest order. One 
sensational incident in his career attracted state- 
wide attention and interest in the late spring of 
1918. 

It was a plot both foolish and abortive that was 
discovered among the coal miners at Donora. 
Joseph B. McCuen, health officer, in the course of 
a charity visit to the wife of an Austro-American 
who was serving in the United States Army, 
found her feeding a sick baby with condensed 
milk, although the charity physician had pre- 
scribed fresh. The woman told him, in broken 
language, that she had been commanded to do 
so by an Austrian who declared that the emperor 
had ordered all his subjects in the United States 
to use condensed milk thereby curtailing the supply 
for American children. She gave him a copy of a 
foreign language newspaper published in Phila- 
delphia, saying that the paper in question had 
published a similar request. The paper was for- 
warded to Washington and information was also 

177 



conveyed to Administrator Lockhart who notified 
the Legal Department in Philadelphia of the facts. 
Mr. McCuen found scores of condensed milk 
cans in Denora split open with an axe and the 
contents ruined. One grocer informed him that 
he had sold three cases of a certain brand of milk 
to an Austrian who had paid full retail price for 
the three cases. An embargo was immediately 
placed on the sale of this milk which resulted in 
the visit of an official of the company who came 
from New York to investigate the situation. He 
found it just as reported and not only compli- 
mented Officer McCuen upon his action but 
commended Administrator Lockhart for his work. 
Nor was this the only instance of pro-Hun plots 
among these aliens. 

A baker in Denora, chairman of the Local Bakers' 
Committee, was discovered shamelessly violating 
the baking rules and made a voluntary donation of 
one hundred dollars to the Red Cross. In turn the 
craven gave the names of other alien bakers who 
had violated administration rules. One baker 
confessed to selling sixty-five barrels of flour 
without substitutes, the flour being delivered 
between three and four a. m. Officer McCuen 
caught this fellow red handed after several nights 
spent in watching his store. The case was sub- 
sequently taken up by the United States Court. 

The efficiency of Mr. Lockhart's administration, 
based solely on the amount of Red Cross penalties 
imposed for violations, is shown in the total of 

178 




E. Calvin Beatty 
Administrator for 
Venango County 



R. A. Cartwright 

Administrator for 

Klk County 



^2,027.60 which he turned over to the Red Cross. 
He was assisted in his work by a large corps of 
the leading men and women of his native county 
who gave unsparingly of their time and effort. 
Like every other conscientious administrator he 
was the subject of adverse criticism. An old 
miller was reported grinding for his neighbors 
without a government license. The adminis- 
trator notified him of the necessity of observing 
the law in that respect. He received a caustic 
letter in reply which concluded with the decla- 
ration, "your Food Administration is worse than 
the German Kaiser." 

There were gleams of lilting humor through it 
all. Early in the spring a woman with a rapier- 
like tongue and an aggressive countenance wafted 
into headquarters to inquire if he had any bean 
poles. There was a negative reply of course 
and the aggrieved female marched off chin in air, 
with the caustic comment that if women were 
running the Food Administration in Washington 
County they would have an ample supply of bean 
poles on hand for distribution. 

The distinction of having unearthed a pro- 
German plot the outcome of which was the arrest 
of the chief plotter on a Presidential warrant and 
his subsequent internment at Fort Oglethorpe, 
Georgia, for the duration of the war, was Lacka- 
wanna County's contribution to the history of the 
Federal Food Administration. It began with a 
serious conflict in the city of Scranton between 

179 



the bakery drivers and bakers of the city. After 
numerous hearings in which conciHation figured 
largely the difficulty was finally adjusted. From 
information gathered during the strike it was dis- 
covered that one driver was the chief agitator. 
It is not known whether he was employed by 
direct agents of the German government or 
whether his pro-Hun proclivities led him to sedi- 
tious acts, but he received the punishment he so 
well deserved. 

Administrator E. B. Belin had a most eflScient 
aid in this difficulty in his chief deputy food ad- 
ministrator, M. J. Martin, who was placed in 
charge of the city of Scranton and the Dunmore 
district. Mr. Martin tried about fifty cases and 
made a notable record as a prosecutor. One 
merchant in the Old Forge district was compelled 
to pay five hundred dollars to the Red Cross for 
selling sugar in one hundred pound lots when 
twenty-five pounds was the limit, and for selling 
flour without substitutes. Another in Scranton 
was closed for three days and contributed five 
hundred dollars to the Red Cross Fund for a 
similiar offense. Several bakers in Scranton were 
tried together and were sentenced to furnish bread 
to the local Red Cross to an amount equal to six 
hundred dollars, as requested by the Red Cross 
for canteen purposes from time to time. One 
wholesaler had his license revoked for the period 
of the war. 

The unique case of its kind in Pennsylvania 

180 



ERRATA 

For E. B. Belin on pages i8o and 269 read 
C. A. Belin. 



arose in Administrator Belin's county. It became 
famous as the "turnip" case. In other words, 
"when is a rutabaga not a rutabaga.?"' A con- 
signment of rutabaga turnips from a neighboring 
county was shipped to a merchant in Lackawanna 
County who refused to accept them. His refusal 
was based on his assertion that they were not 
what they were represented to be, viz., rutabagas. 
Complaint was forwarded to Washington, as a 
refusal to accept food products on flimsy or tech- 
nical grounds was one of the most serious offenses 
against the food laws. The papers in the case were 
referred to Philadelphia by Washington and then 
forwarded by the Legal Department at State 
Headquarters to the Lackawanna administration 
offices. The case aroused widespread interest. 
There were several hearings and a large number of 
witnesses gave testimony. A transcript of all the 
evidence in the case was forwarded to Washington 
accompanied by the recommendations of Adminis- 
trator Belin and his findings were approved. The 
merchant was directed to make a contribution of 
five hundred dollars to the Red Cross for refusing to 
accept the consignment. Another wholesale mer- 
chant had his license revoked for the duration of the 
war. It was not the only one of its kind in the state ; 
this extreme penalty was inflicted because it was 
so glaringly flagrant. It originated through an 
arrangement between the jobber and the whole- 
saler by which shippers in California and distant 

181 



points were induced to forward food products to 
Scranton which upon their arrival would be 
rejected for capricious reasons to the damage of 
the original consignor. The admirable organi- 
zation of his county permitted Administrator 
Belin to secure positive evidence in almost every 
case of food hoarding. In several instances the 
state police were utilized. At one house near 
Archbald the latter discovered in one private 
family 2,500 pounds of sugar. 



182 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE ARTFUL DODGERS. 

Pleading Poverty to Deceive the Officials — 

Incidents from Lehigh, Elk, Venango, 

Clearfield, Cambria and Columbia. 

The most common deception was to create the 
impression of poverty and at the same time play 
on the sympathies of the County Administrator 
by appearing in habihments of woe. It was a 
subterfuge practiced in the large counties as well 
as in the great cities. Administrator George K. 
Mosser of Lehigh had before him the case of a 
woman who not only had excessive quantities of 
sugar on hand but denied its possession. She was 
required to appear, and the predisposition of the 
Administrator was to penalize her to the extent of 
a ^loo gift to the Red Cross. But the abject 
appearance of the woman and the evidence of 
poverty in her shabby dress tended to alter his 
original decision. Her contribution to the Red 
Cross was $25 instead of ^100. 

Several weeks later, Mr. Mosser, who resides at 
Trexlertown, stepped on the trolley to go home, 
when a handsomely gowned woman dressed ac- 
cording to the dictates of fashion also got on the 

183 



car. Her face was familiar. Then it came back 
to him. The fashionably dressed woman was the 
poor creature in shabby garments who had ap- 
pealed to his sympathies during the restrictive 
period. 

Not all delinquents evaded their just deserts, 
for when Administrator Mosser decided to throw 
the fear of the Food Administration into the hearts 
of the unruly, he did it with a high hand and an 
outstretched arm. Secret Service Agents had 
discovered in August, 191 8, that certain families, 
four all told, had managed to conceal large quanti- 
ties of sugar. The fact was communicated to the 
police of Allentown and they warned the offenders 
that they must dispose of the sugar immediately. 
Some days later another visit was made to the 
homes of these people and though a good portion 
of the sugar had been disposed of there was suffi- 
cient left to justify action. They found sugar con- 
cealed in a closet in one home and a large quantity 
hidden away in the cellar of another home, that 
of a son; in fact everything indicated that the 
sugar had simply been distributed around among 
friends and relatives. It was decided to inflict 
a penalty commensurate with the offense. The 
four families were penalized to the extent of $750 
in contributions to the Red Cross, or the alterna- 
tive of being dealt with in the United States Court. 
This example practically ended the Administrator's 
trouble with sugar headquarters in Lehigh County. 

The counties of Lehigh, Berks and Lancaster 

184 




James L. Lockhart 
Administrator for 
Washington County 



George K. Mosser 

Administrator for 

Lehigh County 



form a chain whose population is largely Penn- 
sylvania German and it was to be expected that 
the proverbial thrift and far-sightedness that has 
always characterized these people would come to 
the surface in troublous or critical times. 

An old farmer came to the office of Administrator 
Mosser to make a report of flour on hand. He had 
about two hundred pounds and in order to justify 
his having such an amount explained that his wife 
was sick in bed. On Monday, he said, one daughter 
came to the house to do the washing and she 
brought her six children with her. A couple of 
days later another daughter came to assist with 
the housework and she brought four children. 
These had to be fed and then, above all, in case 
his wife died he declared he should have at least 
enough flour on hand to have bread, pies and 
cakes for the funeral. 

An untried field of co-operation was opened by 
Administrator R. A. Cartwright of Elk County 
for the public school children. With the aid of the 
County Superintendent of Schools, patriotic meet- 
ings were held in the school houses, in which the 
children were the conspicuous figures. The psy- 
chology of Administrator Cartwright was to appeal 
to the parents through the patriotism of their sons 
and daughters. He went farther; he had the 
pupils stage plays that set forth the importance of 
food conservation, and no entertainment was 
organized or given by the public schools in which 
food conservation and a patriotic determination 

185 



to feed our armies and the Allies in the field, was 
not urged with an accompaniment of costume, 
music and the spoken word. While this method 
of food propaganda may have been employed in , 
other counties, the only official record of it comes 
from Elk. 

It was also one of the counties in which the 
number of penalties imposed were reduced to a 
minimum. When a penalty was imposed it was of 
a character to impress other would-be violators 
that no mercy might be expected in case of detec- 
tion. During Mr. Cartwright's administration 
there were ten penalties inflicted, four of which 
involved a business closing ; three of the latter were 
for thirty days each and one for fifteen days. 
There were no "repeated offenses" in Elk County, 
as was the case in Dauphin. The ten applications 
of unadulterated justice held Elk County in line 
as one of the most law abiding in the common- 
wealth. There were only six offenders who 
donated funds in lieu of a closing sentence, to the 
Red Cross, and the total amount of their sub- 
scriptions was $346. 

One of the finest tributes to the intelligent co- 
operation of the people of a county was in Venango 
where but two instances are of record in which the 
authority of Administrator E. C. Beatty was 
called into question. The most serious was that 
of a manager of a chain of retail stores whose 
defiance of the Food Administrator's policy was 
short lived. The Administrator merely directed 

186 



the attention of this particular manager's superiors 
in another city, to his obstructive and untenable 
position. His attitude was changed over night on 
telegraphic orders from the head of his firm. The 
other instance was the action of the wholesalers 
of the county who, possibly from interested busi- 
ness reasons, declined to appoint a personal repre- 
sentative on the Price Fixing Committee. 

Administrator Beatty of Oil City entered upon 
his duties as the successor of J. G. Crawford, of 
Franklin. By the exercise of good judgment and 
common sense he had to his credit the fact that 
during his term of office, which expired coinci- 
dentally with that of the State Administration, he 
did not find it necessary to penalize a single dealer 
in the county. There were numerous cases reported 
to him, but after painstaking investigation it was 
found that the complaint was not based on any- 
thing like legal evidence. His record is unique. 

The co-operation of the citizens with the Ad- 
ministrator was manifested in various ways outside 
their adherence to food laws and regulations. His 
office quarters in the Exchange Building, Oil City, 
were donated and furnished without cost to the 
government by a public spirited citizen, while all 
classes gave evidence of their interest in his work 
by a desire to lend assistance freely and without 
compensation. In a county with the population 
and area of Venango this willingness to aid the 
government through the Food Administrator was 
perhaps best shown in the fact that only one paid 

187 



employee was required to conduct the work of the 
office; all other assistance in the way of clerks, 
deputies and investigators, was furnished without 
a penny of cost. 

Administrator Carpenter of Cambria County, 
who exercised the functions of his office for eight 
months and then was compelled to retire from over- 
work, received over twenty thousand flour reports 
and for days in succession was at his desk until 
midnight. A sample of the thoughtless element 
which formed so large a part of the troubles of 
county administrators was illustrated by a lady 
who, on the last night of the flour registration 
when everything was at top speed, called him up 
over the telephone at three minutes of midnight to 
know if she could send her report in before closing. 

The thoughtlessly indignant formed another 
class which was represented by a butcher in Johns- 
town during the period when Washington ordered 
that the killing of hens should cease. This particu- 
lar individual wanted to know what he should do. 
The reply was that he should "give the roosters the 
ax and keep the hens" if he was a patriotic Ameri- 
can. The indignant reply rippled across the wire 
that he was just as patriotic as the Administrator 
himself. 

"If you are, then you'll not kill a hen. Fm 
running a hotel and I don't propose to serve a 
hen until the ban is lifted." 

"Well, say, Mr. Carpenter, between ourselves, 
don't you think it's a hell of a law anyhow?" 

188 



"Not in war times." The butcher saved his 
hens. 

P. L, Carpenter was one of the Administrators 
able to accompHsh the unusual. With a county 
generally given over to mining and industrial 
establishments he operated his office for five months 
without cost to the government; set aside a room 
in the hotel of which he was proprietor for an 
office, paid his own assistants and conducted affairs 
of the Administration during that period without 
submitting any bill for expenses incurred. He 
never advanced the rates at his hotel and had no 
bar license as a financial aid. A capable business 
man, a director of the Chamber of Commerce, 
Mercy Hospital and the City Planning Committee, 
he was fully qualified to serve his country as he did. 

"This man Linville," was an identifying phrase 
used by Mr. Hepburn in Executive Council one 
day on his return from an official visit to the 
County Administrator of Columbia County at 
Bloomsburg — and the expression of the chief 
counsel clung to the end. "This man Linville'* 
came to be known at headquarters as a tireless 
worker and indefatigable in his efforts to get the 
people of his county to understand and observe 
administration rulings as they came to his hand. 
He tolerated no half-way measures. Assisted by a 
corps of volunteer workers he started out on the 
campaign to secure flour reports from all the fam- 
ilies in the county. And he accomplished a remark- 
able result. So persistent were his efforts and those 

189 



of his assistants that out of a total of 13,320 
families in Columbia County, complete reports 
were received by mail from all but 214 families; 
and they were largely foreigners. 

Mr. Linville relinquished his duties as official 
stenographer of the Twenty-sixth Judicial District 
and became Food Administrator — not in a titular 
sense but actually. He visited merchants, millers 
and farmers by day, and rode miles and miles at 
night to address meetings. Without adequate 
facilities at first, his activities so impressed them- 
selves upon his people that they placed an auto- 
mobile at his disposal ; and then he traveled faster 
and talked harder than ever. All the time he kept 
his deputies, and volunteer assistants busy, in- 
spired by his example. He conducted a farm 
census through the schools of the county which 
resulted in a complete set of statistics from all but 
four farms in the county. With this achievement 
Administrator Linville made a state record. 

In the sugar campaign the Administrator was 
not content to receive routine reports on sugar 
from dealers, hotel, restaurant, ice-cream and 
candy men, but a set of books was opened with 
each individual concern and kept open till the 
sugar rulings were repealed. From first to last he 
gave a remarkable example of patriotism and 
efficiency. 

The greatest difficulty in enforcing the food laws 
was experienced by administrators in counties 
where the population was largely alien. This was 

190 




J. Howard Neeley 

Administrator for 

Juniata County 



P. L. Carpenter 
Administrator for 
Cambria County 





A. W. Thompson 

Admmistrator for 

M;fflin County 



John R. Jackson 
Administrator for Fulton County 



particularly true in the mining and manufacturing 
counties. Clearfield was one of them. John F. 
Short, the first administrator was a man of great 
force of character and personal integrity. He was 
editor of the Clearfield Republican (which, by the 
way is a misnomer, because the Republican is one 
of the most thorough-going Democratic news- 
papers in the state), and had an editorial experience 
covering a period of thirty-seven years. The 
troubles of Mr. Short as food administrator are 
best told in his own inimical way and in his own 
language : 

"I once thought there was no other place under 
the sunlight of heaven so prolific of opportunities 
for studying human character and estimating the 
yellow streak in human kind as the American poker 
table," says Administrator Short in his introduc- 
tory sentence. "I have changed my mind entirely. 
Being food administrator in Clearfield County had 
the poker table faded to a shimmering shadow. 

"When Howard Heinz wired, in the middle of 
December, 1917, that he had named me food 
administrator for Clearfield County and asked 
early acceptance, I was much inclined to decline, 
because I felt there were other war activities a 
man of my age and physical fitness could render 
better service in. However, I accepted and have 
never been sorry. ACTION.'' It was all action. 
Not a minute of the ten months thus engaged was 
of the pussyfooting brand. The boys in the 
trenches in France had nothing on me in the way 

191 



of fighting, and all of it was finish scrapping to 
the mat. 

"Clearfield County contains upwards of a hun- 
dred thousand souls — good, bad, indifferent and 
mixed. Of that hundred thousand and more there 
are all clans of Irish, Germans, French, Scotch, 
English, Italians, Hungarians, Slavs, Russians, 
Poles, Swedes, Belgians and a few thousand who 
try to prove they are simon-pure American; back 
to the "Mayflower" or "Jamestown" or other of 
the early settlers after Columbus. 

"At least thirty-five thousand of that population 
could be termed non-English speaking, or was. 
The county was settled in the latter part of the 
eighteenth century and early nineteenth by colo- 
nists from Ireland (North and South), Germany, 
Prussia and Bavaria. By one hundred thirty 
French families in 1832-3-4; a large number of 
Quakers and a goodly lot of English, Scotch and 
Welsh. Many Swedes came in the latter part of 
the nineteenth century. 

"It was with this interesting conglomeration 
that I had to deal. And it was some deal. A 
continuous battle from early morn till late at 
night, Sundays included, and often after getting 
to bed I was called up to render decisions and give 
orders. 

" I have often thought I may have started wrong. 
I understand that some administrators had county 
organizations, mahogany desks, typewriters, sten- 
ographers, and a deputy for each branch of the 

192 



work, and were able to run the job by dropping 
into headquarters now and then to see that the 
sanitary conditions were normal. At my office 
there were no deputies, I was stenographer, typist, 
and the whole works for some weeks. Finally I had 
to employ a stenographer now and then, and when 
the sugar riot began induced a young woman to 
come in and stay to the finish. I had some extra 
help on occasions. The result was that the admin- 
istrator carried the load and was the recipient of 
all the complaints, bumps, knocks and curses. 

" I located and closely observed more bristles on 
humanity, male and female, than I ever imagined 
grew on the cutaneous envelope of all the animal 
kingdom combined. There were so many people 
who felt and acted as if the food conservation laws, 
rules and regulations, were made only for the other 
fellow. They lived in brownstone fronts and on 
hillside farms ; in the middle section and along the 
tracks. They were special to no class. They were 
all around me and across the road. 

"Several pages could be well filled with the 
experiences of the administrator of Clearfield 
County; experiences interesting, exciting, amus- 
ing, disgusting, embarrassing and everything else 
possible. I rather enjoyed it as a whole. Many 
people who have known me since boyhood say I 
love a scrap. If so, then I had them and of every 
variety from throwing a partly stewed six-foot-four 
bruiser out of my office (with assistance of a chair) 
to trying to molify a crying woman whom I had 

195 



threatened to send to jail for carrying home 
seventy and eighty pounds of oleomargarine one 
week and coming back the following week with 
one hundred and forty pounds of 'fresh country 
butter.' 

"I had the goods on that woman and on a lot 
of stronger men and women who were selling oleo 
as 'fresh country butter/ But the woman gave 
me the first chance to act. My experience with 
her broke up the practice. I made a lot of good 
helpful lieutenants out of that same 'oleo-butter' 
bunch. 

** Early in the work I met with a serious problem. 
If I had solved it as the rules and daily suggestions 
coming from state headquarters in big bundles 
demanded, my usefulness as food administrator 
would have ended. But I didn't. I worked it 
out another way. I abandoned the penalizing and 
publicity order and followed another course. It 
was this: 

"When I caught a man or woman violating the 
rules, when I had him or her fast, I sent for the 
culprit. I brought them on the carpet and pre- 
sented the evidence. Very often they fought hard 
and denied emphatically. But I always had the 
facts. In every case I made a good worker out of 
the offender. My system was to let them know 
just what evidence I had; tell them to go home 
and be good and see that their neighbor was good 
also. I told them I would hold the case open and 
it depended upon themselves whether it closed with 

194 



them inside the claws of the beartrap or not. In 
some cases I told influential relatives or friends 
what I had on their relative or friend, and that I 
was holding the case open to see how they behaved. 
Naturally, I had to forego a lot of publicity and 
many opportunities to see my name in print as 
food administrator. But I have never suffered 
lingering pain over the degree of publicity accorded 
me since casting my first vote. 

"It might not become me or rather it would not 
be in accord with my well-established reputation 
for modesty, to tell how well, and how efficient, 
and how a lot of other things my term as food 
administrator squared with the hopes of those 
who were responsible for my appointment. Suffice 
to say here that I am satisfied with the results 
achieved. I can conscientiously say that we never 
played favorites. The big corporation 'pluck- 
me' stores were grilled and blistered, and squeezed 
harder than were the little side-of-the-road gro- 
cery, or the thoughtless little retailer who was just 
taking a chance for once. Reason? The big 
fellows knew better, and few of them came across 
and behaved properly until after they tried to go 
over my head to higher authority to call me off 
and were unsuccessful. 

"Carloads of flour were commandeered and sent 
into territory where flour was almost impossible to 
obtain. I confiscated flour by the dozen and score 
and half hundred sacks from the hoarders, irrespec- 
tive of class or condition. I took it from Italians, 

195 



from well-to-do farmers, and from tradesmen whom 
I knew had violated the regulations. 

"I never had any of my work questioned by 
superior authority. From the beginning to the 
close of my experience as food administrator of 
Clearfield County the State Administration oflScials 
ever gave me splendid support and invariably left 
me alone to run the job as I thought best. So with 
the National Administration, when appealed to by 
violators to reverse my rulings and actions. 

**A11 in all, I must say the work was interesting. 
There was no idling on the job, no periods of 
inactivity. It was * something doing every min- 
ute' and most of it interesting in the extreme. 

"I would not be doing justice to the work in my 
county if I failed to mention the name of Miss 
Genevieve McGoey, who was my most able 
assistant from the days of the flour survey. So 
efficient was she known to be to all who came in 
contact with her work that my successor, Mr. 
A. D. Bigler, obtained her promise to go with him 
before he agreed to accept the appointment. 

Administrator A. W. Thompson, of Mifflin 
County, a prominent manufacturer of Lewistown, 
was regarded at the outset not only as director of 
food conservation but as a sort of godfather in 
trouble to everyone who had cause for complaint 
on any basis whatever. A farmer of the penurious 
class wrote to him as follows complaining bitterly 
of the extravagant habits of his wife : 

"She even spreads lard on her bread and I want 

196 



you to come over to our town and make the old 
spendthrift stop it." Spendthrift was not the word 
he used but a name that is unprintable. 

An Italian woman appeared at Mr, Thompson's 
home one morning and asked him to send an officer 
over to one of her neighbors and compel her to 
keep her turkeys at home; they were eating her 
tomatoes and unless it was stopped there would 
be no tomato paste for the complainant's family to 
eat with their spaghetti the coming winter. 

There are in Mifflin County a number of Amish 
farmers, a religious sect that has been prominent 
in the life of Lancaster County for a hundred years. 
They are thirfty, honest and religious, but exceed- 
ingly suspicious of everybody not a member of 
their faith. They are regarded by some as the 
most unprogressive of the Pennsylvania German 
element in the state; besides they are non- 
combatants. There was but one way to reach 
these people successfully — by patience and quiet 
persuasion. 

In the beginning they declined to take an active 
part in any movement that had to do with the 
World War, even in the matter of contributing to 
the Red Cross, Y, M. C. A. or other humanitarian 
activities. This was early in the administration's 
history; but before the armistice was signed these 
people, as though the din and threat of the mighty 
conflict with its menace to their generation old 
peace and quiet had at last reached their ears, 
became the most enthusiastic supporters of many 

197 



war measures. Especially was their interest 
aroused in behalf of the Red Cross. They invited 
speakers to address their meetings in English and 
tell the story of the war, and in a number of 
instances it was the first time that any person 
other than one of their own faith had ever occupied 
the pulpit. 

The flour survey appeared to offer a great 
stumbling block to these people, but Mr. Thompson 
visited them and induced them to make a flour 
report by declaring that '* their Uncle Sam'' 
wanted their help, in case he required it, just as 
they helped each other when in need. Presented 
in this fashion the situation appealed to them. 
The simple argument was effective. They visited 
his home in crowds to talk it over and obtain 
information and gradually they became his most 
enthusiastic supporters. As Administrator Thomp- 
son naively observed of this period in his official 
work: 

*'My home for weeks was really no home at all; 
it was a public house with doors swinging inward 
every hour of the day not only for the Amish but 
for others who should have been wiser in the ways 
of the world." 

An experience which the administrator encoun- 
tered was similar to that of another mentioned else- 
where. State game protectors gave valuable aid. 
One of them in making an arrest of an unnatural- 
ized Austrian for keeping firearms in his house, 
found hidden a quantity of sugar. The matter was 

198 



reported and inspectors went to the house, removed 
the sugar and gave it to the Lewistown Hospital. 
While in the neighborhood, Mr. Thompson learned 
that a neighboring Austrian had a quantity of sugar 
concealed. When he visited the house of this 
fellow he appeared with a large knife and a mouth- 
ful of vile threats. As he had no warrant for 
search the administrator was obliged to leave, and 
it was subsequently learned that the alien had 
disposed of his sugar in a short time after the 
administrator's first visit and then disappeared. 

Administrator C. Howard Palmer controlled a 
county that was particularly susceptible to incon- 
venience through the flour and sugar orders. 
Monroe is noted as a summer resort and Mr. 
Palmer, an uncle of United States Attorney- 
General Palmer, is proprietor of one of the hotels 
in Stroudsburg. The normal population of the 
county is twenty-five thousand, but during the 
summer months it has a floating population of 
boarders, hotel guests and cottagers approximately 
sixty thousand souls. 

The sugar allotment in Monroe County was 
based on its normal population at the rate of two 
pounds per person per month. The action of Mr. 
Palmer in enforcing this ruling created consterna- 
tion throughout the Delaware Water Gap region. 
For a brief period he was the most conspicuous 
and widely discussed personage in the region. 
Indignation reigned supreme. The acuteness of 
the situation was relieved, however, by the admin- 

199 



istrator hurrying to a conference with State 
Administrator Heinz in Philadelphia who issued 
orders for an allotment proportionate to Monroe's 
increase of population. Mr. Palmer was instantly 
restored to the good graces of his fellow citizens 
who did not fail to recall that, as a hotel proprietor 
himself, his guests had shared in the temporary 
deprivation. 



200 



CHAPTER XVIII 

STRANGEST STORY OF ALL. 

With Others from Administrators who 

Labored in Carbon, Centre, Beaver 

AND Wayne Counties. 

The oddest of all odd incidents in the history of 
the Food Administration in Pennsylvania is the 
story of how an entire community stocked up with 
"cold," or laundry starch, as a flour substitute, 
and how the merchant who sold it escaped prose- 
cution because an insipient attack of influenza or 
more properly, "cold in the head," made the 
county administrator responsible for the situation. 

The incident is best told in the language of 
Harry A. Blakslee, administrator for Carbon 
County, the principal in the episode: 

"A rural district retail merchant requested me 
to send him the authorized list of substitutes to 
be sold with wheat flour, which I immediately did. 
At a later date it was reported to me that this 
merchant was not complying with the regulations ; 
that he was selling commodities not authorized 
as substitutes. I immediately began an investiga- 
tion and secured indisputable evidence that he 
had sold *cold' starch (for laundry purposes) as 

201 



a substitute in a majority of instances. After 
securing this evidence I proceeded to his place of 
business and confronted him with the evidence, 
when, to my surprise and consternation, he pro- 
duced my letter which listed 'cold starch' as one 
of the substitutes. Upon investigating further, it 
developed that I had dictated the letter at a time 
when I was troubled with a severe *cold in the 
head' and my stenographer, new at that time, 
had understood me to say, *cold starch,' instead 
of corn starch. After dictating the letter I left 
for a trip through the northern end of the county, 
instructing the stenographer to use my autograph 
stamp and send the mail forward, which accounted 
for the error not being detected at that time. The 
moral was evident: read all correspondence dic- 
tated at the time of having a *cold in the head.' " 

At one period during his career as food adminis- 
trator, Mr. Blakslee, who is sturdily built with 
atheltic outlines, doubtless the result of his 
engineering training, and who, under ordinary 
circumstances, is a genial personality without any 
disposition to be bellicose, had a momentary dis- 
position to disregard the question of law and 
order and in the descriptive phraseology of the 
squared circle "mix it up" with one of his callers 
upon official business. Briefly, this was the occa- 
sion: 

A small baker who made a specialty of lemon 
meringue pies visited his office while the sugar ban 
was most drastic; when even icings on cakes and 

202 



Harry A. Blakslee 

Administrator for 

Carbon Count}^ 



Marvin E. Bushong 
Administrator for 
Lancaster County 




pastry were taboo. He declared that to observe 
the rule would spoil his business, for the "foam" 
on his meringue pies required just a little sugar. 
Mr. Blakslee informed him that he must use a 
sugar substitute and that the rule was absolutely- 
inflexible. Approaching very close to the adminis- 
trator he leaned over and whispered in his ear: 

"Now hsten, Mr. Blakslee! I'll box a nice 
great big pie up and send it to you every Monday 
morning if you don't say a word." 

In less than five seconds there was a Carbon 
County pie baker walking Spanish across the 
administration office and when he reached the 
sidewalk he was convinced that there was one Food 
Administration official that couldn't be "touched" 
even with a meringue pie that wore a night cap of 
"foam." Mr. Blakslee threw him out and then 
sat down and had a good laugh over the episode. 

A companion story to this is described by the 
Carbon County administrator as the "cinnamon 
bun" incident. It, too, was associated with the 
sugar ruling forbidding bakers to use sugar for 
top dressings, either as icings or siftings. Informa- 
tion reached the office that one baker was using 
sugar as usual on his cinnamon buns. He was 
promptly invited to headquarters, admitted that 
he was using the sugar as described and exclaimed : 

"But I am not doing wrong, I don't use it for 
top dressings. You see this sugar and syrup 
dressing goes on down to the bottom of the buns, 
it don't stay on top." 

203 



With the exception of two other county adminis- 
trators, Mr. Blakslee was faced with a condition 
that, for a time, threatened the most serious 
consequences; indeed it was the cause of con- 
siderable doubt and uncertainty at administra- 
tion headquarters in Philadelphia. It was the 
threatened action of the coal miners in parts of 
Carbon County to refuse to recognize the 50-50 
rulings as to flour substitutes and go on a strike 
unless they were allowed to purchase wheat flour 
without substitutes. They went so far as to adopt 
the slogan, "Give us food and we'll give you fuel.'* 

For a time it looked as though a very serious 
crisis impended. A shutting down of the mines, 
even a few of them, would produce a disastrous 
eff^ect in other mining regions, both anthracite and 
bituminous, and was an encouragement for the 
enemy alien element in them to strike a blow for 
the hun and his allies. The long distance 'phone 
was used without limit as to time or cost between 
Carbon County and Philadelphia headquarters. 
Mr. Blakslee organized a campaign basing it on 
the patriotism of the miners in a direct appeal to 
them by word of mouth. Evening after evening 
was spent by him addressing meetings of coal 
miners, with the result that the men abandoned 
their position and ultimately accepted the Food 
Administration rulings in good spirit. 

The farmers, too, those who had been accus- 
tomed to raising their own grain and having it 
ground for their personal use, threatened to grind 

204 



their own wheat and use the flour without substi- 
tutes. It was a delicate situation, for the farmers 
declared that they had a perfect right to do this. 
It was a question that arose in other counties but 
the situation was controlled with iron hand; 
probably nowhere better than in Carbon County. 
In reply to their threat Mr. Blakslee announced 
that if they attempted to evade the food law he 
would publish the names of those farmers who did 
so in all the county papers and would head the 
list, "Disloyal Non- Patriots." They could then 
shoulder the consequences. Publicity in this, as 
in hundreds of other cases, was the best weapon 
that could have been used, for nothing further was 
heard from the bucolic kickers. 

For violation of the wheat flour regulation and 
for profiteering the administrator closed the store 
of a Palmerton merchant for thirty days. The 
hearing was at Mr. Blakslee's home,Mauch Chunk. 
Some weeks afterwards, he was invited to address 
the Merchants' Association at that place. He did 
so and announced that he would be compelled to 
curtail his address on account of train service. 
To his surprise, the merchant in question arose 
and said, *'You chust go ahead, Mr. Blakslee, und 
I vill take you home in my machine," and he did. 
They were accompanied on the trip by several 
members of the association and on reaching Mauch 
Chunk, one of the latter asked the owner of the 
car if he knew where the administrator lived. He 
convulsed the entire party who were familiar with 

205 



the circumstances by saying, "My God, do you 
tink ril ever forget it/' 

Mr. Blakslee ran the gamut of every phase, 
possibly, of objectionable incident that could fall 
to the lot of a vigorous, impartial, yet determined 
representative of the government. He was jollied, 
cursed, coaxed, offered a bribe and had his life 
threatened. He visited alone a foreign boarding 
house in search of contraband sugar and flour. 
Upon demanding admittance to the second floor 
where the stuff was hoarded one of the inmates 
drew a knife and threatened to kill him. In relating 
the circumstance afterward, Mr. Blakslee con- 
fessed, with a smile: 

*'I was thoroughly frightened but decided to 
put on a bold front. I bluffed the fellow out and 
threatened to lock him up. I did subsequently 
secure a warrant for his arrest but he had escaped 
before the officers reached the house and has 
never since returned." 

Center County's food administrator, Colonel W. 
Fred Reynolds, was, and is, a man of wide acquaint- 
ance and large business interests. Although born 
in Lancaster County, he has spent practically all 
his life in and around Bellefonte, where as banker, 
manufacturer and prominent member of the 
National Guard, his acquaintance is county-wide. 
At the outbreak of the World War he was ap- 
pointed chairman of the Council of National 
Defense and Committee of Public Safety of 
Pennsylvania for Center County, and was selected 

206 



by Howard Heinz to be food administrator for 
that county. 

During the World War Colonel Reynolds' family 
was conspicuous in patriotic work. One son, a 
graduate from Princeton in 191 7, enlisted as a 
private in Troop L, First Pennsylvania Cavalry, 
National Guard, and he was made first lieutenant 
on the field of France. A second son enlisted in 
the Naval Reserve and was subsequently made a 
lieutenant, junior grade in that service. Mrs. 
Reynolds worked continually in the Red Cross. 
While in addition to his other duties, including 
president of his Red Cross Chapter, Colonel Rey- 
nolds was also brigade officer of the Pennsylvania 
Reserve Militia. 

In the discharge of his duties of food administra- 
tor, however. Colonel Reynolds permitted no 
claims of old acquaintance or friendship to interfere. 

A prominent business man near the county 
seat owned a farm at which annually his farm 
manager gave a dinner to him and invited guests. 
The annual dinner of 191 8 was given at a time 
when the greatest efforts were being made to 
conserve wheat flour, with special pressure brought 
to bear on farmers, many of whom thought it 
necessary to have their straight wheat flour bread 
while the rest of humanity was eating substitutes. 
The dinner, in spite of war conditions, was a 
success. 

The day following an influential citizen, who had 
been one of the invited guests, met the food 

207 



administrator and in the course of conversation 
remarked that he had enjoyed the novelty of 
eating some bread made from pure wheat flour. 
As still further impressing it upon Colonel Rey- 
nolds' attention, one of the local newspapers 
referred to this dinner in a highly complimentary 
manner, praising the farm manager's wife for a 
fine repast and congratulating her upon the 
character of her bread. The participants were, 
almost without exception, personal friends of the 
administrator and here was his opportunity to 
get busy; and he did so with a promptitude which 
left an impress upon the entire community that 
was never eradicated during the remainder of his 
administration. 

While it would be, perhaps, far-fetched to infer 
that the Food Administration in Center County 
was administered with military exactitude, yet the 
fact that Colonel Reynolds had for years been 
active in the military establishment of the state 
aided him in the construction of rulings with a 
precision and promptness not to be found in other 
counties where the administrator had not enjoyed 
the advantage of being a disciplinarian and himself 
the subject of discipline. 

One of the features of his work was the estab- 
lishment of schools of instruction throughout the 
county. There is a large foreign element in Center 
County, which in point of area and miles of road 
is one of the largest, if not the largest, in the state, 
and the foreign element especially required per- 

208 



sonal attention. For weeks at a time Colonel 
Reynolds' office was in his motor car. Individuals 
were visited, personal instruction given, and the 
results accomplished without the necessity of hav- 
ing to inflict many penalties; in fact, few persons 
were found who could be regarded as deliberately 
defying the rules. In nearly every case ignorance 
caused the trouble. 

In Beaver County Administrator Addison Court- 
ney was an official with an unique experience. In 
the first month of his work he visited all the 
grocers, as far as possible, in his county, ex- 
plained the administration rules and endeavored 
in every way to throw light upon a difficult situa- 
tion. In the town of Ambridge, however, one of 
the merchants becoming indignant took the admin- 
istrator by the arm, led him to the door and 
remarked as he ejected him, that when he wanted 
an outsider to show him how to run his business 
he would send for him. That particular individual 
never requested the assistance of the administrator. 
He closed out and quit business. 

It became necessary at times, as administrators 
usually found, to act vigorously as a deterrent to 
law violation. At one place the head of the house- 
hold declared that he had no sugar in his possession. 
Administrator Courtney had information to the 
contrary and immediately began a search. He 
went through the house from attic to cellar, 
explored the outbuildings and finally reached the 
cow stable, the householder following with a 

209 



grin on his face. The administrator informed him 
that if he were found guilty of falsification he 
would be compelled to pay well for it. The fellow 
only smiled and the search went on. At last in 
a haymow, carefully screened from view, Mr. 
Courtney found one hundred pounds of sugar. 

"How much is it going to cost me.^"' inquired 
the trapped culprit. 

"Just a hundred dollar donation to the Red 
Cross," was the reply. 

"You charge entirely too much," was the truc- 
ulent reply. "Since when has your time been 
worth fifty dollars an hour?" 

"Since I became food administrator," replied 
Mr. Courtney. The man made the donation. 

A neighbors' quarrel had a curious denouement 
in Beaver Falls. They were two women. The 
owner of a property residing on the ground floor 
had rented the upper floor. One of the adminis- 
trator's women deputies overheard by chance a 
backyard quarrel in which threats of exposure for 
flour hoarding were bandied about. This informa- 
tion was conveyed to the food administrator and 
the following morning he visited the house. The 
owner denied she had very much flour on hand, 
but in the kitchen he discovered forty pounds. 
He proceeded upstairs where he encountered the 
tenant who had made the unguarded threat. 
She instantly became alarmed, also abusive, and 
exclaimed, "Who in hell told you there was flour 
up here.f^" The administrator ignored her classic 

210 



language and proceeded with his search. Screened 
by the head of a bed he found a low door opening 
into a diamond shaped closet which extended half 
way across the building. It was four feet high and 
the administrator was compelled to creep about 
feeling his way until he located what he was 
seeking. Piled up on an old rocking chair in the 
darkest corner, covered with carpet, he found 
two hundred pounds of flour. It was the re- 
mainder of two barrels that had been purchased 
some time before and the family had been living 
sumptuously off^ bread made without substitutes. 
In this case, for salutary effect on the neighbor- 
hood the guilty property owner contributed one 
hundred dollars to the Red Cross. 

The large foreign population of Beaver County 
was a source of permanent trouble, not from a 
desire to be annoying but from ignorance. The 
same questions were asked repeatedly by the 
same persons, and just as patiently, as far as pos- 
sible, replied to with the necessary information. 
One baker of foreign birth, more intelligent than 
his neighbors, after listening to the bombardment 
in two or three different languages for upwards 
of an hour, assured Administrator Courtney that 
if he didn't go crazy before the end of his term it 
would be the surprise of his life. 

" Beaver County had a half pound of sugar per 
capita due her people over and above the allotment 
on November i, 191 8," wrote the administrator. 
"Taking it through and through, Beaver County 

211 



can be proud of her record during the war. She 
over-subscribed her quota in each bond issue and 
Red Cross drive ; the money was freely given and 
all sacrifices willingly made." 

All individuals prosecuted in Beaver County, 
with the exception of five, confessed their guilt 
and paid the penalty. Those who did not were 
compelled to cease business for a period of ten to 
twenty days; one merchant was closed for the 
period of the war. The contributions turned over 
to the Red Cross were $5,350, although, as the 
administrator observed, "I feel that it is a very 
trivial sum compared to the value obtained in the 
saving of sugar and flour.'* 

When State Administrator Heinz selected Robert 
J. Murray, of Honesdale, to be federal food 
administrator for Wayne County on February i, 
19 1 8, he appointed one of the youngest administra- 
tors in the state. There were others in Wayne 
County who might have been named for the posi- 
tion of food administrator and who possessed 
every one of the attributes above described; but 
Robert J. Murray "knew his people." He was 
familiar with their ways of doing business ; manner 
of life; methods of thought and deduction: in 
other words, he had a knowledge of life in north- 
eastern Pennsylvania. 

Besides, he was young, virile and resourceful, 
with a background of business training that argued 
for a successful administration of federal food 
affairs in this extreme northeastern county of the 

212 



state; and this smooth-shaven, rotund, brown- 
haired young man proved the stuff that he was 
made of. He came to the State Conference of the 
county administrators with an unusual story. It 
was a story of resourcefulness, but its legitimate 
sequel would have established a dangerous pre- 
cedent. To the assembled administrators, during 
a discussion of the question of publicity in which 
the Chief of the Division of Press News had out- 
lined a policy, Mr. Murray said : 

"It is all very well to talk about using your local 
newspapers for the dissemination of food informa- 
tion, but what are you going to do with a situa- 
tion like this? In my county some of the news- 
papers owing to the high cost of paper, the govern- 
mental restrictions on its supply, increased postal 
rates, and the additional fact that they have so 
little space, while willing and patriotic, find it 
impossible to publish all Food Administration 
matter. I solved the difficulty though.'' 

"How.?" inquired the Director of Press News 
with curiosity; all the other administrators waited 
eagerly for the answer. 

"My firm carries an advertisement in the news- 
papers in our town. We buy and pay for the space 
and can use it as we see fit. I conceived the idea 
that I could use some of our advertising space to 
get the food regulations across and so I've been 
doing it with great success." 

It was a clever idea. Mr. Murray was the only 
administrator in the state, however, who had 

213 



resorted to such measures. It was a high light on 
his patriotism and ingenuity; but it was an iron- 
clad rule of the publicity system, a fixed principle, 
that not a penny should be paid for advertising 
by the administration; because its rulings and 
decisions affected in some way every individual in 
the commonwealth. It was news of the most 
important kind and highest value. Every news- 
paper in the state of Pennsylvania but one co- 
operated with the Food Administration. The 
editor and publisher of this particular weekly news- 
paper in an eastern county wrote a truculent com- 
munication to headquarters and positively refused 
to publish a line emanating from the administra- 
tion. 

"If you want the use of my columns, you can 
pay for them at regular advertising rates. Every- 
body is making money. Take Hog Island and the 
shipbuilding plants along the Delaware, are they 
giving material and labor to the government free.? 
You needn't send me any more stuff in the hope 
that I will print it unless you accompany it by a 
check in payment of our regular space rates." 

Some time after, while in New York, I read in 
one of the morning newspapers that this editor and 
publisher had died the day before; three weeks 
after he had written the letter above quoted. 

Administrator Murray secured the services of 
several instructors from domestic science schools 
to give demonstrations of baking with substitutes 
and over 5,000 women attended. Home pledge 

214 



cards were distributed to 6,000 families. The 
most unusual demonstration made by any admin- 
istrator was the appearance of Mr. Murray and 
his efficient deputy, Mr. Mumford, both of whom 
are inclined to overweight, at the head of the 
4th of July parade in Honesdale clad in regulation 
farmer garb, their natural rotundity increased by 
judicious padding, and each bearing a placard 
reading, ''Raised on Substitutes." They were 
accompanied by twenty attractive young ladies in 
white, each representing a wheat flour substitute. 

One community, a mining settlement of three 
hundred families, all foreigners, assumed a hostile 
attitude and caused the merchants of the town 
considerable trouble and annoyance. They refused 
to attend any food conservation meetings, until 
Mr. Murray conceived the idea of ofi^ering them a 
free musical entertainment. Between the num- 
bers he sandwiched in talks on the necessity of 
conserving food and the use of wheat flour substi- 
tutes. There was no subsequent trouble. 

Much of Mr. Murray's success as administrator, 
as he generously says, was due to the unflagging 
zeal of his chief deputy administrator who, like 
himself, was a volunteer. Mr. J. O. Mumford was 
one of the leading members of the bar in north- 
eastern Pennsylvania ; a graduate of Amherst Col- 
lege, and associated with his father in the practice 
of the law under the name of Mumford & Mum- 
ford, with offices in Honesdale. 



215 



CHAPTER XIX 

BOTH ENDS OF THE STATE. 

Tales from the East and the West — North- 
umberland, Fulton and Greene, in 
THE Work. 

There were features of organization work that 
would under any circumstances have rendered the 
administratorship of J. Simpson KHne of Northum- 
berland conspicuous, apart from their benefit to 
the public at large. Among them were the loca- 
tion of twelve hundred bushels of seed corn that 
was distributed among the farmers for seed pur- 
poses; securing over six tons of nitrate of soda 
from the government for the farmers at cost; 
distributing three hundred and sixty pints of 
formaldehyde to treat oats for smut and seed 
potatoes for scab diseases (over 5,000 acres were 
treated). Account books placed with farmers and 
aid given them in keeping these books in the 
interest of greater efficiency; organizing pig-feed- 
ing clubs among the boys and girls; spraying 
demonstrations in the interest of better fruit; 
corn tests to determine which variety was best 
suited in the county, and auto excursions to the 
State College. Eighty-four automobiles carried 

216 



over four hundred people on one of these ex- 
cursions to gain direct knowledge of experimental 
work. 

In addition to the above, seventy boys were 
enrolled in the United States Boys' Working 
Reserve and placed on individual farms; Business 
Men's Association's, Boards of Trade, and Rotary 
Clubs were organized for emergency labor during 
the harvest season; a tractor demonstration was 
conducted and a number of tractors subsequently 
purchased by farmers; a purebred Hog Breeders' 
Association was organized. Three carloads of 
sheep were brought into the county and placed on 
farms as an aid in the meat campaign. 

Administrator Kline organized his county down 
to every schoolhouse door, and visited personally 
all sections delivering over one hundred addresses. 
Speaking of this experience, he said: 

"Such persistent application to the work of the 
Food Administration ultimately made one feel as 
though he was a part not only of the work but of 
the name ; and this same idea must have been im- 
pressed on the writer of one letter to me who 
addressed his envelope to *J. Siministrator, Sun- 
bury, Pa.' " 

The postal authorities in Sunbury were undoubt- 
edly accustomed to handling *' nixies," as improp- 
erly addressed letters are called in the vernacular 
of that service, and the curious epistle reached the 
destination for which it was intended. 

217 



Among the hundreds of letters received by him 
at his office was one which afforded a few sug- 
gestions for "Uncle Sam.'* 

"Cut out the waste of grain entirely for the 
manufacture of all alcoholic drinks; also the 
feeding of bread and meat to dogs and cats. When 
you and I were boys the farmers raised sheep; 
they had wool, mutton, and lamb for themselves 
and to sell, but as dogs and sheep don't thrive 
together, the sheep had to go; that's why we have 
no wool. I say kill every dog no matter about the 
value. We are paying high prices for food and the 
people are throwing it to the dogs." The writer 
closed with a diatribe against the familiar English 
sparrow which he described as "eating food from 
humanity." 

Mr. Kline was only one of the many administra- 
tors who were convinced by experience that the pre- 
dominant weakness, if it may be termed such, of 
thousands of people during the sugar crisis was 
that of lying; cold blooded and premeditated. 

In a letter dealing with this unlovely phase of 
his work he says: 

"For the few who are not with us in the cause 
and did not display the spirit of true, patriotic, 
American citizenship, we desire to express deep 
sympathy and regret, with the hope that they may 
live long enough to realize their great error and to 
appreciate their country and its laws, repent in 
sackcloth and ashes, and again become loyal, 

218 



useful and respected American citizens in the 
communities in which they hve. They did but 
little harm to anyone but themselves. 

*'For the multitude who were with us we 
express our deep appreciation and are grateful for 
their support both in words and deeds." 

To accept the appointment of county food 
administrator at a direct personal and financial 
sacrifice, to conduct all of its manifold duties single- 
handed for months without so much as an office 
assistant, to have no means of communication 
with the people through daily newspapers and to 
then be charged with being the recipient of a fat 
salary from the United States Government is an 
experience that stands alone in the story of the 
federal food administratoin in this state. Yet 
John Rossell Jackson, administrator for Fulton 
County, was the official who had this unusual and 
yet unromantic experience. 

Fulton, let it be known, is the unique county of 
Pennsylvania. It has neither railroads, foreign 
population, daily newspapers, nor a notable indus- 
try. It is in the southern tier of counties on the 
border of Maryland; it has a population of 
10,000, 85 per cent of whom live on farms. There 
are but three weekly newspapers in the county and, 
at times, rapidly shifting and kaleidoscopic chang- 
ings in food rulings presented to Administrator 
Jackson a continuous and unending Chinese puzzle 
as to how he could transmit to the people, and 
render effective, the food laws as they were 

219 



issued from headquarters. But John Rossell 
Jackson is one of those rare characters who all his 
Hfe has been accustomed to overcome the seem- 
ingly insuperable. There is a strain of the same 
blood in his make-up that ran in the veins of 
Abraham Lincoln; for his mother was a Hanks of 
the same family that gave to the world the mother 
of the great emancipator. 

Mr. Jackson has made his way in the world 
since he was a boy; he worked and saved and 
schooled himself and graduated from college, 
read law and was admitted to practice before the 
Supreme Court of the state and finally was 
selected as the most available man for food adminis- 
trator in his native county. He was appointed 
administrator early in January, 1918, and from the 
day of his appointment until July ist, he was, as 
he tersely expressed it, "the whole food adminis- 
tration, office force and all." After that date, a 
paid assistant was given him. 

"One thing that we were very thankful for was 
that we have no foreign element in this county 
except one family of Italians. The head of the 
family is a survivor of the South Penn Railroad 
and about all that Fulton County has left of its 
railroad hopes." 

There are three weekly newspapers published 
in the county; they loyally supported the admin- 
istration and gave liberally of their space to Food 
Administration rulings and propaganda. But, being 
weekly newspapers, often by the time a ruling 

220 



published in their columns had reached their 
readers, a modification had been issued from 
Washington that nullified or altered what had gone 
before. The height of his embarrassments, how- 
ever, was the persistent idea among the farmers that 
the county administrator was the author of all 
food regulations. They were unwilling to concede 
any honors to Herbert Hoover or Howard Heinz; 
John Rossell Jackson, *'the young lawyer down in 
McConnellsburg," was their bete noir; the indi- 
vidual who was interfering with their lives, their 
liberty of action and their pursuit of bucolic 
happiness. Then the capstone of it all was laid 
one day in the manner following: 

"A farmer of rather a low standard of intelligence 
expressed what I believe was, at the time, the 
feeling of many who should have known better. 
He remarked to one of our merchants that the 
county food administrator was pulling down a 
good fat salary and imposing hard rules on the 
people. The merchant came to my rescue and 
told the farmer that the administrator was not 
getting a cent for his work ; whereupon, after some 
deliberation, the man remarked: 'Well, he's either 
getting a good salary or he's a damn fool.'" 

As the months went by, however, the Fulton 
County folks began to adapt themselves to the 
changed conditions. Stories from the battle front 
reached the remotest corners of the county and 
awakened latent patriotism to a point where it 
required little effort on the part of the adminis- 

221 



trator to secure an enforcement of Food Adminis- 
tration laws. And in the end, Mr. Jackson, as he 
gratefully acknowledged in a letter to head- 
quarters, had the satisfaction of knowing that his 
work in his native county had been well done. 

In the mountainous counties of the Appalachian 
region in the states south of Mason and Dixon's 
line, and in certain counties in Pennsylvania as 
well, "moon shining," the manufacture of illicit 
whiskey, is regarded as a legitimate and highly 
commendable business. Coincident with it is a 
general detestation of revenue officers. One of the 
best incidents cited by Administrator Wisecarver, 
of Greene, is that of a mountaineer whose son was 
leaving for France. The "ridger" came down to 
the train to say good-bye to the boy with this 
parting injunction: 

"Son," said he, "I fought agin the Union fer 
fouh long years but I'm reconciled now. Tm foh 
the flag, an' when you go oveh thea and ketch 
sight of any of them Germans, shoot 'em down on 
sight same's you would a revenue officer." 

Greene County, with perhaps two exceptions, 
has the largest acreage of tillable land in the 
commonwealth. It is essentially a farming and 
stock-raising county more or less remote from 
great thoroughfares of communication and its 
administrator was compelled to exercise unlimited 
patience and good nature in dealing with a people 
thus situated and upon whom had been thrust 
conditions undreamed of in their daily lives. 

222 



In the course of his duties Mr. Wisecarver found 
that there existed a certain amount of pro-German 
feeling which was expressed in a denunciation of 
England. It was among a small minority, but he 
organized a campaign of education that happily 
eradicated this mistaken prejudice. The fidelity 
with which the people of Greene County observed 
meatless days, in fact all the regulations regarding 
the conservation of beef and pork, led Mr. Wise- 
carver to observe: 

"Meat? We haven't seen any to speak of for 
more than a year and I can go forth on the farm 
unashamed and look a steer, cow, or hog straight 
in the face and never bat an eye. The only 
sinecure office in the whole administration was 
that of my meat lieutenant, and had he not 
served faithfully on the Fair Food Price Committee 
his record would have been seriously impaired 
in my administration." 

One of the characteristic letters received by 
Mr. Wisecarver was one in which the writer said, 
"W^ill you kindly let us have twenty-five pounds of 
sugar for canning. They are rotting badly and 
we would like to save them." 

Another unusual letter was the following: 

"Dear Sir: — ^This zzd November is my ninety- 
fifth birthday and I am said to be the oldest justice 
of the peace in the United States doing business. 
I have two grandsons in France and one in camp, 
and at my age I think I am entitled to get what 
food I need to keep my health. 

223 



"I am all alone, do my own cooking, and I ask 
you as a favor to me to authorize our merchant to 
sell me what sugar I need for my own purposes, 
and allow me to have bread made from wheat 
flour/' The signature was that of Leroy K. Hall, 
Greensboro, Pa. 

"It was no particular hardship for our people to 
obey the regulations of the administration in 
regard to flour and its substitutes," said Adminis- 
trator Wisecarver. "Corn always has been a 
popular article of diet among our people. There 
has always existed a prejudice among some of 
them, the older ones, against the new roller 
process of milling which has gradually rendered 
obsolete the old-fashioned burr process. There are 
many people in the county today who will ride 
miles to a mill to have their grain ground by the 
old burr process rather than patronize a roller 
mill within a mile of their homes.'* 

Greene was one of the counties that reported a 
hog census to headquarters. The influenza epi- 
demic invaded the county just as the public school 
children were preparing for this work. Only in a 
few instances were there townships in which a 
census could be taken. With a perfect knowledge 
of farm conditions, Mr. Wisecarver grouped these 
returns using the general average as a guide and 
made a report which was practically perfect. 



224 



CHAPTER XX 

UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES. 

The Unique Trials of One Administrator — 

Details from Lebanon, Lancaster, 

Mercer and Clinton. 

To conduct Food Administration affairs from a 
comfortable suite in a stately office building with 
willing volunteers and a capable clerical staff is 
one thing; to direct the same business in a rural 
county, somewhat given over to coal mining, with 
a polyglot population, distant villages to reach, 
with a limited staff, and lying on your back with 
one leg in splints and your home turned into a 
caravansary so far as unannounced entrance and 
exit of the populace is concerned, would ordinarily 
try the nerves, temper, and patriotic desire to 
serve, of any man to the nth power; but that is 
what W. W. Winslow, Esq., lawyer, banker and 
administrator for Jefferson County did when the 
conservation campaigns were in full career. He 
accomplished his work with a success that was 
not achieved by some other administrators who 
were in full possession of bodily vigor and untram- 
meled powers of locomotion. 

225 



For ten weeks Administrator Winslow's office 
chair was a bed, his desk a paper pad on one knee ; 
his office his private bedroom, and his principal 
assistant the telephone at his elbow. With quaint 
humor he furnishes a glimpse of his career prior 
to his conscription as civilian food administrator 
in these words : 

"I have dabbled in various things: I have held 
nearly every position in county banks, from presi- 
dent down; served as school director; ran church 
choirs; helped organize corporations; edited news- 
papers; and just when I was trying to settle down 
to raising a family the office of county food admin- 
istrator was thrust upon me. It looked harmless. 
There seemed to be little to do except furnish 
certain matter for the newspapers every few days. 
I accepted gladly. I was too old to go to war. I 
wanted to be in it long before the President did; 
here was a step in that direction. I took it all very 
seriously. I did everything I could to keep the 
Food Administration before the public. I gave the 
newspapers all they would stand of the hundreds 
of rules and orders issued, and as most of the 
papers were weekly, I managed to get these things 
published and nicely circulated just about the 
time they were repealed, revised, or suspended. 
Finally, I began trying to interpret the rules to 
make them fit circumstances and further the work, 
without harassing too much the individual. 

"For instance; though I kept the stores down to 
their proper limit in their sales of sugar and flour, 

226 



and maintained a very respectable standard of 
obedience to the law on the part of people gen- 
erally, I found it difficult to refuse the appeals of 
those elderly persons who assured me in personal 
interviews or lengthy communications that they 
could not eat and could not digest substitute breads 
and pleaded for a wheat diet exclusively. I 
argued the matter but usually ended by granting 
their requests. I have watched their careers since 
with much interest but without unalloyed pride; 
everyone of them has died ; the last one only last 
week. Possibly if I had compelled them to eat 
substitutes they would, at least some of them, be 
living yet." 

Administrator Winslow had surmounted the 
heights of difficulty in making the flour survey in 
Jefferson County; had opened all the reports, 
classified them by districts, answered the personal 
letters that accompanied about 2,000 of them, held 
personal interviews and answered telephone calls 
that appertained to the other 8,000 householders 
and had just caught a glimpse of a promised land 
of rest ahead when he fell and broke his leg. It 
was a great opportunity to resign. He discussed 
the matter with Howard Heinz, state food admin- 
istrator, but the latter put his foot on it: not on the 
administrator's leg but upon any suggestion that he 
turn the work over to less competent hands. Thus 
it came about that the federal food office in Jeffer- 
son County was transferred to the guest room in 
the Winslow residence, with the telephone on one 

227 



side and a nurse on the other who was physically 
able to make a few hundred trips up and down 
stairs each day. 

"Once the numerous Italian, Slavish, and 
Croatian merchants and their various male and 
female assistants found out where the office was," 
resuming the administrator's narrative, *'they sel- 
dom bothered with the door-bell or other unseemly 
restrictions. They walked in at one or the other 
entrance and trailed upstairs trying doors until 
they found the right one, oftentimes encroaching 
upon the family preserves. Frequently their feet 
were muddy. Frequently they had the most 
malignant facial expressions even when I found 
them to be of the gentlest nature within; but the 
effect on the good wife was trying, not to say 
exasperating. Unfortunately she was unable to 
see anything funny about the visit of a large stout 
man with two wooden legs who walked the length 
of the front porch with nice sharp spikes in his 
crutches. He was about to start across the hard- 
wood floor and up the uncarpeted stairs to my 
room when he was headed off. She mentioned the 
floors to him but he assured her he was not afraid 
of slipping, as he had hob-nails in his shoes besides 
the spikes in his crutches. She finally induced 
him to pause in his mad career. 

"Then the millers had to be dealt with. They 
had predilections for personal interviews that 
added much to the gayety of the household. Com- 
ing fresh from the mill in their delivery wagons, 

228 



they were able to leave a well-marked trail of 
white from the front door to the furthest corner 
of the guest room. There they found an uphol- 
stered chair that gathered most of what was left 
on their garments. Fear of a strike made it 
inadvisable to call on the maids to do the 'follow- 
up' in such cases, so the burden again fell on the 
lady of the house. Small wonder was it that she 
finally ran away to Atlantic City to save her 
nerves from collapse." 

Administrator Winslow's broken leg got well, 
just as everything began going smoothly again. 
When he had finished an 8 x 12 addition to his 
home where office hours could be comfortably 
observed from 8 to 10.30 p. m., the armistice was 
signed. Gloria Dei! 

There was one peculiarly difficult task that fell 
to the lot of Administrator P. N. Hershey of Leb- 
anon County. Fortunately, Mr. Hershey comes of 
a line of sturdy ancestors who have lived in the 
heart of two of the greatest Pennsylvania Dutch 
counties of the state. First a farmer and later a 
business man of experience, he had the confidence 
of his people in addition to being able to converse 
with them in their own tongue with all the fluency 
of a native born. To this fact, together with his 
known integrity and wide acquaintance, was due 
the success that attended his efforts as an adminis- 
trator, and tided him over the shoal of trouble. 

Mr. Hershey, after a course at normal school and 
college, established an ice cream business in Leb- 

229 



anon connected with his dairy interests in the 
county. The business expanded rapidly and was 
ultimately purchased by the great Hershey Choco- 
late Company, Mr. P. N. Hershey being placed in 
charge of all their milk interests, a position he 
holds at the present. It was in consequence of this 
that the peak of his troubles was reached when the 
sugar restriction order went into effect. It rested 
on the difficulty of explaining to his people the 
necessity of conserving sugar, and the righteousness 
of the sugar restrictive laws of the Food Adminis- 
tration, in face of the fact that he was prominently 
identified with a concern that was using thousands 
of pounds of sugar daily in the manufacture of a 
candy product. When the situation was fully 
understood, after being presented with the force 
and simplicity of the Pennsylvania Dutch tongue, 
that the Hershey concern was operating under 
direction of the government and that its output 
measured in tons of chocolate weekly was being 
shipped to our armies in the trenches of France and 
that, next to their daily food, it was the most 
important element in the diet of the soldier, the 
doubt and objection vanished like a mist. 

Administrator Hershey is the author of one of 
the neatest epigrams of the Food Administration 
period : 

"Some of the Food Administration's rulings 
seemed automatically to develop more ornate and 
gentlemanly liars than I ever dreamed could exist 
in Pennsylvania." 

230 



This utterance found an echo in the heart of 
nearly every other county administrator in the 
state. In the case of the Lebanon administrator, 
however, the expression was evoked by statements 
that were as ludicrous as they were inane. Respect- 
able men applied at his office, under the canning 
rule, for ten pounds of sugar to preserve twenty 
quinces. 

*'We actually had requests for preserving certifi- 
cates for canning cherries to such an amount that, 
if granted, the cherries would have formed but one 
per cent of the mass and the sugar the other nine- 
tenths." 

This was possibly to be expected in a Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch county where the tables at all times 
are supplied with an amount and variety of food 
not found elsewhere in the state; and ** spread," 
in the way of fruit-butters and jams, is demanded 
for the daily bread. These people work hard and 
eat heartily. Everything in the way of food that 
these farmers produce finds its way to their tables. 
They may be frugal in various other ways but they 
never stint themselves at the table. 

It is a notable fact also, to which administrators 
like Mr. Hershey in counties where the Penn- 
sylvania Dutch form a considerable if not pre- 
dominating element of the population will sub- 
scribe, that these people are patriotic to the core 
and often far readier to make sacrifices than dwell- 
ers in the city. But they must understand a 
situation before they act; they must be appealed 

231 



to with simple directness, though impassioned 
appeal arouses them to a highpitch of patriotic 
enthusiasm. 

In these annals of the Food Administration in 
Pennsylvania it has fallen to the lot of but one 
man to have his biography written by such a dis- 
tinguished chronicler as the Lieutenant Governor 
of the state. Marvin E. Bushong, administrator 
for Lancaster County, enjoys this distinction. His 
lifelong friend, Lieutenant Governor Frank B. 
McClain, has written about Mr. Bushong's career 
as one of the leading men of his native county. 
The limits of this work will not permit the author 
to repeat all the appreciative things Governor 
McClain has said of Mr. Bushong, but a brief 
extract of the essential points will cover the 
story. In the first place, as one of the leading 
agriculturists of the state, Mr. Bushong was 
appointed by Mr. Heinz to be one of the members 
of his advisory committee of sixteen selected from 
over the state, when the former was made director 
of the Department of Food Supply for the com- 
monwealth. This distinction was accorded him by 
the fact that he has been successfully identified 
with great agricultural interests. Being a Lancas- 
terian by birth this was to be expected. 

Although he had large outside business interests, 
Mr. Bushong was at the same time a farmer and 
lived upon and operated his own farm in southern 
Lancaster County. He was born in Eden Town- 
ship near Quarry^ille on June 7, 1878. In his 

232 



clever and enthusiastic way Lieutenant Governor 
McClain writes concerning Mr. Bushong: 

"He received his appointment as federal food 
administrator for Lancaster County January 2, 
19 1 8, and I feel confident in saying that no 
county federal food administrator in Pennsylvania 
applied himself to the task cut out for him with 
more effectiveness than Marvin E. Bushong. The 
results he achieved were accomplished with the 
least possible amount of friction because of the 
tact he employed. Let me further say that when 
the roster of the self-conscripted brains and energy 
in support of the war program in Lancaster County 
is made up the name of Marvin E. Bushong will be 
written away up at the top." 

Mr. Bushong along the lines of efficient work 
deserved the encomiums paid him by the Lieu- 
tenant Governor of the state. A quiet unassuming 
man, he gave one the impression of a college pro- 
fessor rather than that rare combination, farmer 
and active business man. And yet, when necessity 
demanded in conference or elsewhere, Mr. Bushong 
expressed himself with vigor and emphasis in clear- 
cut sentences that carried weight. In addition 
to his work as county administrator he also 
carried the burdens of civilian activities in war 
work in "the garden county of the United States." 

When the smoke had cleared away from the 
ultimate battlefields of France and the victory of 
the hosts of democracy and civilization was 

233 



assured, Stanley A. Gillespie, administrator for 
Mercer County, found time to write: 

**In all my life of thirty-five years I have lived 
more and lived more deeply in the one in which I 
was associated with Howard Heinz, as food admin- 
istrator for this county, than any other." 

It was a tribute all the more impressive because 
Mr. Gillespie, prevented by a serious physical 
defect from entering military service seized gladly 
on this opportunity to prove his devotion to his 
country. 

The basis of the Mercer County organization 
was the principle that "Patriots will, all others 
must." Putting the situation directly up to his 
own people with the request that every loyal 
citizen co-operate in exposing violations and cor- 
recting misunderstandings, it became unnecessary, 
odd as it may seem, to maintain a staff of investi- 
gators or to seek police assistance. Men and 
women in Mercer County not only accepted 
appointments as deputies and aids but came 
forward and volunteered their service. Where it 
became necessary to impose penalties they were of 
a character to deter others from similar violations. 

It was unique in the story of the administration 
but scores of people in Mercer having no official 
connection with the administration, rejoicing 
merely in the title of "patriotic citizen," volun- 
tarily undertook the labor of distributing circulars, 
home cards, posters, and otherwise doing outside 
work so necessary to the spread of propaganda and 

234 



organization of work in the county. But the 
pro-Huns were just as active and insidious in their 
work in Gillespie's district as they were in every 
other county in the state. The special object 
of their attack was the administrator himself, 
but his position in the community was too secure 
to be shaken by the statement that while imposing 
restrictive rules on the people his own attic was 
filled with flour and his cellar with sugar. Another, 
and it was the most common lie of all, partially 
effective only among the ignorant foreigners, 
was that Gillespie was receiving a fat salary as 
food administrator of anjnvhere from ^5,000 to 
$25,000 a year. 

An incident that stands near the head of Mr. 
Gillespie's experiences occurred on the first meat- 
less day when consternation like a miniature 
cyclone broke loose in one of the leading restau- 
rants of the county. The administrator and several 
of his staff dropped in between night meetings for 
a bite. The proprietor had just learned in the 
afternoon that "requests" of the administrator 
were laws and must be obeyed accordingly. He 
had arranged to adapt his service to the changed 
conditions but on this particular day, above all 
days, somehow a cog had slipped. The restaurant 
early in the evening had exhausted its ice-box 
supply of fish and poultry and was serving steaks 
instead. When someone announced the identity 
of the individuals at the administrator's table 
pandemonium broke loose. In a flurry of almost 

235 



hysterical excitement the waitresses gathered in a 
frightened group in one corner of the room; the 
excited chef was half crazed by apprehensions of 
what might befall him; the gesticulations and 
emphatic orders of the proprietor, mingled with the 
audible comments of the guests, reached a climax 
when the head waitress in an agony of appre- 
hension cried out, "My God, what's to become of 
us?" In the rigid observance of food conservation 
laws from that memorable night until the last 
order was issued by Administrator Gillespie that 
particular restaurant was a "top notcher" in 
conservation of food and obedience to the law. 

One notable feature in the operation of the Food 
Administration in Pennsylvania was the eco- 
nomical manner in which it was conducted in the 
rural counties. The work was carried on at an 
expense that was trifling compared with the magni- 
tude of the undertaking. As an example the 
expense account of W. T. Griffith, administrator 
for Clinton County, is quoted and it can be dupli- 
cated in many of the less populous counties of the 
state. 

From August i, 1918, to January i, 1919, there 
was expended for salaries $262.50; traveling, 
$238.86; stationery, $67.70; telephone and tele- 
graph, $31.86; total, $600.91. The average for the 
entire state is, however, far away and beyond this. 
The expense of office rent and overhead charges in 
populous counties and large cities dwarf such 
showings as the above, but these quotations are 

236 



tangible evidence that county administrators like 
Mr. Griffith loyally strove to hold expenditures to 
the lowest possible point thus controverting asser- 
tions of the wilfully ignorant, or traitorously pro- 
German element, that the Food Administration 
wasted money that should have been devoted to 
other purposes. With his vice-administrator, I. 
S. Gundsburg, every phase of propaganda work 
was carried through successfully by Administrator 
Griffith and the success of the administration in 
Clinton County was entirely due to his intelligent 
appreciation of what the government demanded of 
him. 

William T. Griffith was appointed federal food 
administrator for Clinton on the recommendation 
of the Executive Committee of the Council of 
National Defense of that county. Of medium 
height, slender, smooth shaven, he looks out upon 
the world in a kindly way through large rimmed 
spectacles. Appointed January 14, 191 8, he fixed 
his first official office in his mercantile establishment 
on East Main Street, Lock Haven. His first 
assistants were the employees in his store; but as 
the work broadened he appointed deputies over the 
county; took an office elsewhere and employed a 
stenographer. All the expenses of his administra- 
tion were carried by the administrator himself 
until later in the year when assistance from the 
Council of National Defense shifted the burden 
and enabled him to employ additional help and 
supply proper office equipment. 

237 



CHAPTER XXI 

HUNS AT HOME. 

Many Reports of Glass in Food — Westmore- 
land, Allegheny, Potter and Juniata's 
Part in the Work. 

Revelations of the plots of the despised Bern- 
storff at Washington and a general suspicion of all 
German born residents was, undoubtedly, in great 
measure responsible for rumors of ground glass and 
poison in food. They also had the effect of arousing 
the people to greater caution in their dealings with 
alien sympathizers. One of the most persistent 
reports, and it came from various parts of the 
state, was that of attempted poisoning by toxic 
ingredients introduced into food products; none 
so common as the ground glass plot. Even the 
remoter counties of the commonwealth were not 
exempt from these rumors. With one or two 
exceptions these stories proved to be without 
foundation, the fears of the people being aroused 
by glistening fragments of crystallized sugar which 
were mistaken for glass. 

Dorr R. Cobb, food administrator for Potter 
County, a man of exceptionally sound common 
sense, had a number of these rumors brought to 

238 



his attention. The result is best described in 
inimitable fashion by Mr. Cobb : 

"If the digestion of the food administrator was 
impaired by the unusual number of between-meal 
luncheons on biscuits and cakes alleged to contain 
glass, and brought to his office for investigation, it 
was heroically endured as a part of the duties of 
the office. Special thanks are tendered to those 
citizens of Potter County who sent samples of 
sugar. They eked out the very meager allotment 
of sugar for his family and it was found that the 
glass dissolved in the coffee as readily as did 
sugar/' 

Mr. Cobb was undoubtedly of the stuff that 
heroes are made of. It is a brave man who, under 
the circumstances, would fearlessly munch a 
cooky or slice of pound cake, no matter how 
enticingly prepared, if it was under suspicion of 
harboring in its composition a small segment of a 
pane of glass, but those who came to know him 
during his official career recognized in the virile 
personality, and his firmness and resolution, the 
type of official who was ready to set an example and 
lead that others might follow. His fairhess and 
impartiality were never questioned because of 
one hundred and twenty-seven investigations 
made in Potter County many proved to be of 
such minor importance that the voluntary con- 
tributions of the offenders to the Red Cross 
amounted to less than five hundred dollars. 

A difficulty inseparable from his work was that 

239 



of adjusting trade conditions between consumer 
and dealer. Potter is a county of small towns and 
Administrator Cobb shortly discovered that to 
compel the butcher particularly to compete with 
city prices, with the latter's high overhead charges, 
would have driven most of them out of business 
and deprived the village or town of the accommo- 
dations afforded by these merchants. 

Tact, common sense, concessions and the co- 
operation of the tradesmen succeeded in averting 
any serious difficulty, increased the influence of 
the administrator and merited the confidence of his 
people. In a smaller way Mr. Cobb duplicated 
in Potter County the work of Director R. P. 
Smith, chief of the Bureau of Trade Distribution 
at headquarters, in handling the local flour situa- 
tion. Several times during the year there was 
extreme shortage of wheat flour, particularly in 
the months of July and August, 191 8, and the 
bakers of Potter were in great danger of closing for 
lack of supplies. With one exception, however, 
all were cared for by transferring, speedily and in 
sufficient quantities, flour from one part of the 
county to another, and drawing liberally upon the 
stocks of various merchants. During this period 
many consumers were reduced to the necessity of 
buying their flour from day to day in small lots, 
but the critical period passed without any suffering 
extreme hardships. 

Not all county administrators had unusual ex- 
periences. There were, as might be expected, in the 

240 



sixty-seven counties in the state certain ones in 
which the course of events proceeded uneventfully 
up to the declaration of the armistice. This is 
particularly true of agricultural districts like 
Juniata County. J. Howard Neely, Esq., adminis- 
trator for Juniata, in a letter to headquarters on 
this subject, unconsciously paid a high tribute to 
the character of his fellow citizens over whom he 
had been appointed to enforce the food regulations : 
"This being a purely agricultural county with a 
stable and substantial citizenship, the work of the 
administration had no unusual happenings in the 
experiences of the administrator and his assist- 



ants." 



Mr. Neely, who was one of the regular attend- 
ants at the various district meetings of the adminis- 
trators, and at the general gatherings for consulta- 
tion and instruction on three occasions in Phila- 
delphia, manifested a keen interest in the various 
interpretations of rulings given by Mr. Heinz, 
Chief Council Hepburn, or those of the experts from 
Washington. His pointed interrogations clarified 
numerous vexing problems for others. Being a 
leading member of the bar of Juniata County his 
legal training manifested itself in the directness 
and variety of the questions asked these instruc- 
tors. 

With a clear understanding of his duties Mr. 
Neely inaugurated a campaign of education with 
the unanimous support of the press, ministry, 
merchants and leading citizens generally of Juni- 

241 



ata. Intensity of interest was also stimulated 
through a desire to "do his bit," seeing that his 
two sons, Princeton graduates. Lieutenant J. 
Howard Neely, aerial observer, and Lieutenant 
William H. Neely, also in the aviation service as 
air pilot, who fought through the Argonne cam- 
paign, were helping to make history in France. 
A notable comment on the activities of county 
administrators, of whom J. Howard Neely was an 
example, was that where one of these officials had 
the honor and distinction of having a son in the 
military service of his country, his work was in 
the highest degree efficient and almost without 
exception free from local criticism. 

At one of the general meetings of all the food 
administrators of the state at the Bellevue-Strat- 
ford Hotel, Philadelphia, a well set, carefully 
groomed man, whose hair showed touches of gray, 
approached me smilingly with extended hand : 

"Do you remember the last time we met?" 

The experiences of a busy life had touched the 
face of the speaker with deeper lines than when 
I had last seen him and the hand of time had 
frosted his hair, but out of the background of 
twenty years I recalled the picture. 

It was on an ocean steamship dock in San 
Francisco in August, 1899. An army transport 
was moored alongside whose decks were crowded 
with soldiers, cheering and gesticulating to the 
crowds below. It was the Hancock bringing back 
the Tenth Pennsylvania Regiment, recruited mainly 

242 




J. (). MuMFORD 

Deput\' Administrator 
for Wavne Countv 



r. J. WiSECARX F.R 

Administrator for 
(ireene Count\' 




RoBKRT J. Murray 

Administrator for 

Wayne County 



C. S. TUTTLE 

Deputy Administrator for Greene County 



from Westmoreland, Washington and other west- 
ern counties to their native land. On the forward 
deck was a flag-draped coffin containing the 
remains of its beloved leader, Colonel Hawkins. 
It was a tumultuous scene, nevertheless, because 
the tenth, which, twenty years later plowed its 
way through the barrages of the Huns was the 
regiment that had gone from the farthest East 
to help establish American supremacy in the 
Philippines. 

John Barclay, still a young man but even then 
prominent in the business life of his native county, 
was on the dock as a member of the reception 
committee sent across the continent to greet the 
regiment. The writer was there as the staff 
correspondent of a Philadelphia newspaper. From 
that day, during the lapse of twenty years, we 
had never met till the State Conference of County 
Administrators. The recognition was instantane- 
ous and during the few minutes of an inter- 
mission old memories of the distant days were 
recalled. 

The Barclays of Westmoreland County are an 
old family in that former "Democratic Star of 
the West," and when it became necessary in Jan- 
uary, 191 8, to appoint a food administrator for 
Westmoreland County John Barclay, vice-presi- 
dent of the Barclay- Westmoreland Trust Company, 
whose calm judgment, integrity and patriotism 
had been known for a generation, was selected for 
the post. 

243 



"There's nothing much about our work/' said 
Administrator Barclay, "that you'll not find in 
almost any other county of the state. We made a 
systematic canvass of the county with the aid of 
interpreters and, in some instances, house-to- 
house canvasses of mining villages drew the less 
desirable element of our population into sympathy 
with the work. A strong appeal was made to the 
women, and the fine manner in which they responded 
is deserving of the highest commendation. I had 
solidly at my back the united patriotic press of 
my county, and to it belongs a very large share of 
success of our undertaking. 

"One particular incident I recall that annoyed 
me, but only for a few minutes, was a homely 
little episode that occurred one morning about 
daylight when a woman from a neighboring town 
called me over the telephone. I had been working 
late at night, for it was in the busiest days of the 
administration, and I was greatly in need of rest. 
What do you suppose she wanted.^ She had 
wakened me at that unearthly hour to inquire if 
I would let her kill a hen for a member of the 
family who was sick in bed. It was on the end of 
my tongue to administer a rebuke which she would 
not have forgotten, but I restrained myself because 
I thought of the law-abiding feeling that prompted 
her action, and so, instead of a sharp retort, I 
granted her request and thanked her for doing as 
she did ; but my rest was broken for the remainder 
of the night. 

244 



The Westmoreland administrator was not the 
only one who was worried by people over the flour 
substitute rule. One administrator kept con- 
stantly on hand in a little closet in his office a loaf 
of substitute bread. Of course it had been baked 
according to the receipt of the Division of Home 
Economics of which Miss Pearl McDonald of 
State College was the head. When a woman 
entered his office with a complaint that it was 
impossible to bake bread with substitutes fit for 
a human being to eat, this particular administrator 
would turn to his cupboard, take out the loaf, 
cut a slice from it and begin eating the other part 
himself with the remark: "Now, this is the 
substitute bread my family eats three times a 
day. It's first rate ; it's healthy, and if it is good 
enough for me, it's certainly good enough for you." 
The demonstration was invariably a success. 

W. D. George was appointed federal food admin- 
istrator for Allegheny County, which includes the 
second city in the state, Pittsburgh, on No- 
vember 26, 1917. Joseph B. Shea was originally 
appointed to the position but he never assumed 
office or qualified for the appointment. Mr. George 
selected as his assistant Herbert L. May, who acted 
as adviser with reference to the mercantile end 
of the work, publicity and advertising, and James 
B. Miller, Esq., was made chief of the Legal 
Department. Mr. George to the end of the 
administration devoted his entire time to the 
work. The Food Administration office was first 

245 



located in the People's Bank Building, Pittsburgh, 
but was subsequently removed to old City Hall 
on Smithfield Street. The administration work in 
Pittsburgh in great measure was conducted along 
lines similar to those of Philadelphia, the general 
policy being to obtain willing co-operation of the 
food trades, rather than to compel it by coercion. 
There were several notable cases of penalizing, 
however, which attracted attention all over west- 
ern Pennsylvania. In one instance, which was so 
flagrant and of such magnitude that it demanded 
the attention of the state administrator Mr. 
Heinz, the culprits, a large wholesale house, sub- 
mitted to one of the heaviest penalties inflicted 
upon any concern in the commonwealth. 

In his selection of Mr. George as administrator 
for the important territory of Allegheny County, 
Mr. Heinz was actuated by a desire to secure for 
this service, a man of wide experience in business 
life who was able to grasp complex problems with 
a firm hand. W. D. George came of sturdy Irish 
stock, the head of the family having come to this 
country nearly a hundred years ago. His family 
branched out. into mercantile and manufacturing 
businesses, the father of the administrator having 
been in turn a wholesale grocer of Pittsburgh, a 
farmer in Washington County and the proprietor 
of a flour mill in Monongahela City; he was a 
coal operator at the time of his death. The 
administrator was born in Washington County 
and educated in the old Second and Fifth Ward 

246 



public schools of Allegheny, Pa., and was a gradu- 
ate of the Allegheny High School in the class of 
1887, subsequently attending for a brief time the 
Western University, now the University of Pitts- 
burgh. From clearing house clerk in one of the 
Pittsburgh banks he rose to be general bookkeeper, 
which connection he severed nearly a quarter of 
a century ago to enter the real estate and insurance 
business which is his present occupation. He is 
a director of the People's National Bank and vice- 
president and director of the People's Saving and 
Trust Company. 

A powerful adjunct to the work of the Food 
Administration in Allegheny County was the loyal 
support of the daily newspapers of that city. 
There are seven of them. Ably edited and success- 
fully managed, every resource at their disposal 
was placed at the service of Mr. George and much 
of the success achieved, beyond matters of execu- 
tive action and decision, was due to their unswerv- 
ing fidelity and faithful co-operation. 



247 



CONCLUSION. 

The Federal Food Administration in Pennsyl- 
vania was officially demobilized on February 15, 
19 1 8. Its activities began to wane after the 
declaration of the armistice on November 11, 1918. 

No one who witnessed the tumultuous rejoicing 
mingled with the prayerful thanksgiving of the 
people in Pennsylvania, can ever forget Armistice 
Day. In Philadelphia the city literally went mad 
with joy and excitement. 

Down on Penn Square every agency of din and 
confusion had been given the untrammeled freedom 
of the great city. There was the endless and 
unbroken shuffle of a hundred thousand feet, the 
blare of bands, the skirl of fife and ruffle of drum. 
At intervals the din was punctured by exploding 
bombs, far above which, in mid-air, aeroplanes like 
great silver dragon flies were drilling, circling, 
diving and ascending in the nippy air. Phila- 
delphia was victory mad. Along the sidewalks 
men and boys shouted, children sang, and women 
wept. Skyscrapers emptied their packed thou- 
sands into the thoroughfares. Spindles halted, 
wheels ceased to spin, and the drum-fire noises of 
the shipyards halted as the hundreds of thousands 
of workers rushed forth to sing and shout. 

While it was doubtful whether or not its services 

248 



would be required in connection with the rehabili- 
tation of the war-torn nations of Europe, it was 
decided that the bulk of the salaried and clerical 
force should be demobilized. This work was begun 
within two weeks after the armistice was signed 
and was practically completed by the 31st of 
December, 1918. The license system, which had 
been a great power for good in the hands of the 
administration officials, was gradually modified 
until, by the 15 th of January, 19 19, only dealers 
in a few, certain commodities were subject to 
license regulations. 

On orders from Washington, the general demobil- 
ization of the volunteer forces of the administration 
took place on February isth, after which time 
only a skeleton force, necessary to dispose of 
furniture, fixtures and wind up the affairs of the 
administration, was retained. Thus practically the 
activities of this great organization in Pennsyl- 
vania, which had contributed so much to the 
conservation of food, came to an honorable end. 



249 



THE FEDERAL FOOD ADMINISTRATION 
FOR PENNSYLVANIA 



^Administrator 
HOWARD HEINZ 

Fie f '/Administrator 
J. S. CRUTCHFIELD 

Administrator for Philadelphia 
JAY COOKE 



Chiefs of Division and Departmental Heads 

Division of Law and Enforcement 

Chief Counsel Charles J. Hepburn, Esq. 

Associate Counsel Stacy B. Lloyd, EsQ.f 

Associate Counsel John A. Nauman, Esq. 

Associate Counsel Reynolds D. Brown, Esq. 

Associate Counsel F. Markoe Rivinus, Esq. 

Associate Counsel Ralph C. Stewart, Esq. 

Associate Counsel Wm. Barclay Lex, Esq. 

Associate Counsel Henry Pepper Norris, Esq. 

Division of Distribution and Markets 

Chief of Division J. S. Crutchfield 

Trade Distribution R. P. Smith 

Traffic Manager Joseph P. Brown* 

Division of Conservation 

Chief of Division Thomas Shallcross, Jr.! 

Chief of Division Thomas R. Elcock, Jr. 

Division of County Administration 

Chief of Division Harry H. Willock 

* Resigned. 

t Resigned to enter Military Service. 

X Resigned to enter other Government Service. 

250 



Division of County Inspectors 

Chief of Division Houston Dunn 

Division of Press News 

Director Col. George Nox McCain 

Division of Education 

Director Montgomery H. Wright 

Retail Stores Section L. W. Wheelock 

Library Section Miss Florence Hulings 

Division of Hotels, Eating Houses and Clubs 

Chairman of Division J. Miller Frazier 

Woman* s Division 

Chief of Division Mrs. Charles M. Lea 

Division of Licenses, Reports and Office Management 

Chief of Division W. C. Mac Bride* 

Division of Bakeries 

Chief of Division Fred C. Haller 

Division of Farmers' Interests 

Farmers* Representative C. J. Tyson 

Farmers* Representative M. L. Phillips 

Division of Grain Threshing 

Representative Charles Garber 

Division of Dairy Interests 

Milk Commissioner Dr. Clyde L. King 

Dairy Husbandry Prof. Fred RasmussenI 

Division of Auditing 

Chief of Division Herbert G. Stockwell 

Division of Price Interpretation 

Chief of Division A. F. Gelino* 

Chief of Division J. H. Beerits 

Division of Commercial Economy 

Director E. Lawrence Fell 

Extension Department 

County Farm Agents Prof. M. S. McDowell 

Division of State Sabbath Schools 

Representative W. G. Landes 

Division of Co-ordinated Educational Activities 

Director Dr. William McClellan 

Division of Home Economics 

Miss Pearl MacDonald 



* Resigned. 

X Resigned; appointed Secretary of Agricultui-e of Pennsylvania. 

251 



THE FEDERAL FOOD ADMINISTRATION 
COUNTY ADMINISTRATORS. 

Adams County Dr. E. H. Markley, Gettysburg 

Allegheny County W. D. George, Pittsburgh 

Armstrong County *John H. Lawson, Esq., Kittanning 

Karl D. Schotte, Esq., Kittanning 

Beaver County Addison Courtney, West Bridgewater 

Bedford County John N. Minnich, Esq., Bedford 

Berks County fCharles T. Davies, Reading 

J. A. Keppleman, Reading 

Blair County S. S. Reighard, Altoona 

Bradford County *Walter T. Page, Athens 

U. M. Fell, Towanda 

Bucks County *A. Harry Clayton, Doylestown 

*W. W. Cornell, Doylestown 

Isaac J. Van Artsdalen, Esq., Doylestown 

Butler County Ed. M. Bredin, Butler 

Cambria County *P. L. Carpenter, Johnstown 

George B. Glenn, Johnstown 

Cameron County Dr. Leon Rex Felt, Emporium 

Carbon County Harry A. Blakslee, Mauch Chunk 

Centre County Col. W. Fred Reynolds, Bellefonte 

Chester County Thomas L. Hoskins, Esq., West Chester 

Clarion County Walter W. Wilson, Esq., Clarion 

Clearfield County tjohn F. Short, Clearfield 

A. D. Bigler, Clearfield 

Clinton County William T. Griffith, Lock Haven 

Columbia County William B. Linville, Bloomsburg 

Crawford County E. A. Hempstead, Meadville 

Cumberland County Dr. H. H. Mentzer, Carlisle 

Dauphin County Donald McCormick, Harrisburg 

Delaware County Fred. A. Howard, Chester 

Elk County R. A. Cartwright, Ridgway 

Erie County Conrad Klein, Erie 

Fayette County Charles L. Davidson, Uniontown 

Forest County James D. Davis, Tionesta 

Franklin County C. Parker Miller, Chambersburg 

Fulton County John R. Jackson, Esq., McConnellsburg 

Greene County T. J. Wisecarver, Waynesburg 

Huntingdon County S. A. Hamilton, Huntingdon 

* Resigned. 

t Resigned to enter special work at headquarters. 

X Appointed United States Marshal for Western Pennsylvania. 

252 



Indiana County *W. A. Guthrie, Indiana 

J. E. Parnell, Indiana 

Jefferson County W. W. Winslow, Esq., Punxsutawney 

Juniata County *A. F. Beyer, Mifflin town 

J. Howard Neely, Esq., Mifflintown 

Lackawanna County Charles A. BeHn, Scranton 

Lancaster County Marvin E. Bushong, Lancaster 

Lawrence County John A. McKee, New Castle 

Lebanon County P. N. Hershey, Lebanon 

Lehigh County George K. Mosser, Allentown 

Luzerne County William O. Washburn, Wilkes-Barre 

Lycoming County Brua C. Keefer, Williamsport 

McKean County T. F. Hungiville, Smethport 

Mercer County Stanley A. Gillespie, Greenville 

Mifflin County A. Walter Thompson, Lewistown 

Monroe County C. Howard Palmer, Stroudsburg 

Montgomery County.. . .*Hon. H. K. Boyer, Norristown 

C. Henry Stinson, Esq., Norristown 

Montour County H. D. Swank, Danville 

Northampton County . . . *Albert Brodhead, Bethlehem 

C. K. Williams, Easton 
Northumberland County. J. Simpson Kline, Esq., Sunbury 

Perry County Rev. William Dorwart, Newport 

Philadelphia County. . . .Jay Cooke, Philadelphia 

Pike County Hon. Alfred Marvin, Matamoras 

Potter County Dorr R. Cobb, Coudersport 

Schuylkill County Hugh Dolan, Pottsville 

Snyder County R. L. Schroyer, Selinsgrove 

Somerset County Ross R. Scott, Esq., Somerset 

Sullivan County B. T. Martin, Dushore 

Susquehanna County .... Hon. H. A. Denny, Montrose 

Tioga County F. H. Rockwell, Esq., Wellsboro 

Union County Guy F. Roush, Mifflinburg 

Venango County *J- G. Crawford, Franklin 

E. C. Beatty, Oil City 

Warren County W. D. Todd, Warren 

Washington County James L. Lockhart, Washington 

Wayne County Robert J. Murray, Honesdale 

Westmoreland County. . .John Barclay, Greensburg 
Wyoming County *L. F. Camp, Tunkhannock 

Dexter W. Stark, Tunkhannock 
York County Grier Hersh, York 

* Resigned. 

253 



THUMBNAIL SKETCHES 
OF Members of the Administration. 



Barclay, John, Food Administrator for Westmoreland County^ 
Bom in Greensburg 1862, and has lived there all his life. Entered 
Princeton in the fall of 1879; succeeded his father in the banking 
business in 1881. Vice-President of the Barclay- Westmoreland Trust 
Company. Appointed Food Administrator for Westmoreland County 
January 10, 1918, Residence, Greensburg, Pa. 

Beatty, E. Calvin, Federal Food Administrator for Venango 
County. Bom in Courtney's Mills, March 10, 1860. Educated in 
public schools. Entered the Bradford Oil Field in 1884. Member of 
the Oil City Oil Exchange, which at the time fixed the prices of crude 
oil for the world. General Manager Oak wood Farm and Gardens. 
Resigned in 1907 to become Superintendent Tri-State Gas Company, 
operating large gas and oil interests in West Virginia, Pennsylvania 
and Ohio. Residence, Oil City, Pa. 

Belin, C. a., Administrator for Lackawanna Coimty. Bom in 1877, 
son of Henry Belin, Jr., and Marguerette E. Belin. Educated at Yale 
University and University of Pennsylvania Law School 1903. Was 
connected with the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company in the Pur- 
chasing Department from 1902 until 1912. Was their foreign represen- 
tative in London, England and Valparaiso, Chile. Purchasing agent 
for the Aetna Powder Company from November, 1914, until June, 
1915. Residence, Scranton, Pa. 

Blakslee, Harry A., Administrator for Carbon County. Bom in 
East Mauch Chunk, March 13, 1879. Educated St. John's School, 
Manlius, New York and Lehigh University Preparatory. For years in 
Engineering Department of Central Railroad of New Jersey and later 
with the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company doing con- 
struction work in Wisconsin. In 1907 returned to East Mauch Chunk 
and took up the business of investments and securities. Appointed 
Food Administrator January, 1918, and continued imtil the termination 
of the administration. Home, East Mauch Chunk. 

BoYER, Henry K., administrator for Montgomery County. Bom at 
Evansburg February 9, 1850. Educated at Freeland Seminary. Mem- 
ber of the Philadelphia Bar since 1873. Speaker of the House of Repre- 

254 



sentatives, 1877-1899. Elected state treastirer 1899. Appointed 
administrator for Montgomery County late in 1917. Resigned on 
account of ill health caused by overwork. 

Bredin, E. M., appointed Food Administrator for Butler County on 
February 13, 1918. Served until the close of administration's work. 
Home, Butler, Pa. 

Brodhead, R. p.. Chief Deputy for Luzerne County, was bom in 
East Mauch Chunk, Carbon County, Pa. Attended public schools and 
subsequently completed a business course at Wyoming Seminary, 
Kingston, Pa. Spent some time as bookkeeper in the lumber business; 
afterwards as salesman; entered railroad contracting work and for 
twenty years devoted his entire time to that work. For fifteen years 
was engaged in the wholesale meat and oil business in Wilkes-Barre 
and having closed that business at the opening of the war, gave his 
entire time, voluntarily, to Food Administration work. Residence, 
Kingston, Pa. 

Brown, Reynolds D., Associate Counsel. Bom May 6, 1869, 
at Newcastle, Del. Educated at Germantown Academy and William 
Penn Charter School, graduating in 1886; Harvard College and the 
University of Pennsylvania Law School. Was elected a fellow of the 
latter, serving from 1894—1897, and in the latter year was elected 
Professor of Law and has served continuously since that time. Prac- 
ticed law continuously from 1894 imtil the present. Spent six months 
in the Y. M. C. A. Service in the French Army and on his return 
appointed on the legal staJff of the Food Administration. Residence, 
Philadelphia, Pa. 

BusHONG, Marvin E., Administrator for Lancaster Coimty. Bom 
in Eden Township, near Quanyville, Lancaster County, on June 7, 
1878. Has been identified with agricultural interests for years. Was 
appointed member of the Advisory Committee by Howard Heinz, 
Director Food Supply Department of the Public Safety Committee. 
Though a farmer and operating his own farm, has many outside interests 
in Lancaster County. Received his appointment as Food Administrator 
on January 2, 1918. Address, Lancaster, Pa. 

Carpenter, P. L., Food Administrator for Cambria Coimty. Bom 
and educated in Johnstown and spent his entire business career in that 
city. For seven years was employed in the Rolling Mills Department 
of the Cambria Steel Company. Subsequently entered the hotel 
business; as owner he operated the Capitol Hotel in that city for the 
past twenty-seven years. Never had a Hquor Ucense. For the first 
six months of his official career bore entire expense of the office out 
of his private funds. Residence, Johnstown, Pa. 

255 



Cartwright, R. a., Federal Food Administrator for Elk County. 
Bom on a farm near Buffalo, N. Y., January 11, 1864, and in the fall 
of 1882 took up his residence in Elk County. He is at present engaged 
in the coal mining indust^y^ Appointed Food Administrator for Elk 
Coimty, February 2, 1918. Residence, Ridgeway, Pa. 

Cobb, Dorr R., Food Administrator for Potter County. Bom at 
Spring Mills, N. Y., and served for the duration of the Food Administra- 
tion. Educated at WoodhuU Academy, New York, and Lewisville 
Academy, Pennsylvania. Appointed Food Administrator December, 
1917. Residence, Coudersport. 

Cooke, Jay, Federal Food Administrator for Philadelphia and Mem- 
ber of the Executive Council. Bom, Philadelphia, April 22, 1872, 
son of Jay Cooke, Jr., and Clara A. (Moorehead) Cooke. Educated 
Cheltenham Military Academy and University of Pennsylvania. 
Married Nina Louisa Benson, 1895. Became partner banking house 
of Charles D. Barney & Co., 1892; since retired to devote attention to 
his private interests. Appointed Federal Food Administrator for 
Philadelphia County December 10, 1917. Member Union League, 
Rittenhouse, Racquet and Automobile Club of Philadelphia; Hunting- 
don Valley Country Club, Sunnybrook Golf Club, and Metropolitan 
and Links Club of New York; Auto Club of America. Residence, 
Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. 

Crutchfield, James S., Vice Food Administrator for Pennsyl- 
vania and member of the executive council. Bom in Goshen, Ky., 
July 3, 1874. Educated in the public and high schools of Louisville. 
Went to Florida and engaged in the business of buying and packing 
fruits and vegetables. Removed to Pittsburgh in 1896 and established 
the firm of Crutchfield & Woolfolk, as commission merchants. Is 
president of that corporation. Is also president of the American 
Fruit Growers, the Fruit Auction Company, Pittsburgh Fruit and 
Produce Exchange, William Penn Trust Company; director of the 
Western National Bank; treasurer, Deerfield Groves Company. Is 
director of the Western Theological Seminary and member of the 
Duquesne Club of Pittsburgh and the Old Colony Club of New York. 
In June, 1917, was appointed Vice Director of the Food Supply Depart- 
ment of the Committee of Public Safety. On the formation of the 
Federal Food Administration became Vice Administrator for Penn- 
sylvania. Residence, Sewickley, Pa. 

Davies, Charles T., Federal Food Administrator for Berks County. 
Bom in 1872. Received high school education and took a special course 
in chemistry; entered the office of chief chemist of the Reading Railroad 
and was subsequently advanced to that responsible position; later, 
became connected with the firm of A. Wilhelm Company, paint manu- 

256 



facturers, superintendent and chemist; seciired half interest in the 
Reading Knitting Mills and subsequently purchased the plant of which 
he is now sole proprietor. Under his management it has enlarged its 
capacity three times. Residence, Reading, Pa. 

Denny, H. A., Administrator for Susquehanna Coimty. Appointed 
December, 1917. Bom in Equinunk, Wayne County, May 9, 1867. 
In his early boyhood his family came to reside at South Gibson, Sus- 
quehanna County. After leaving public school, continued his educa- 
tion at Factoryville Academy and Bucknell University. Read law with 
A. H. McCoUum in Montrose, Pa. Appointed Common Pleas Judge 
by the Governor June, 1916. 

DoLAN, Hugh, Federal Food Administrator for Schuylkill County. 
Bom in Pottsville 1874. Educated in local schools and Mount St. 
Mary's, Emmitsburg, Md.; took course in Mining Engineering; 
engaged in business of specializing in mine development, shaft sinking 
and timneling, which line he has followed to date. Home, Pottsville, Pa. 

DoRWART, Rev. William, Administrator for Perry County. Born 
Lancaster County, July 20, 1864. Educated in the public schools, 
Yeates School, Lancaster, St. Stephen's College, New York, and the 
General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, Pastor of 
Trinity Church, Steelton, Pa.; afterwards assigned to the Church of 
the Nativity, Newport, Pa., and St. Stephen's Church, Thompsontown, 
Pa.; Archdeacon of Harrisburg. Appointed Food Administrator for 
Perry County, January 29, 1918. Residence, Newport, Pa. 

Dunn, Houston, Chief of the Division of County Inspectors for the 
State and Member of the Executive Council. Bom August 3, 1876, 
Philadelphia. Educated at Episcopal Academy. Entered the insurance 
business and later became Specialist in Fire Prevention Architecture. 
Later took a course at Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, in Structural 
Engineering, after which he became Inspector for the Hand-in-Hand 
Insurance Company of Philadelphia; Inspector for Philadelphia Board 
of Fire Underwriters. Organized Fire Prevention Bureau, and eleven 
years ago opened offices as Houston Dunn, Inc. Identified in official 
capacity with trade insurance companies. Residence, Philadelphia. 

Felt, Leon Rex, Administrator for Cameron County. Bom at 
Emporium, Cameron County, April II, 1885. Educated at Stetson 
University, Deland, Fla., and Alfred University, Alfred, N. Y. Entered 
Dental Department of the University of Pennsylvania 1902, graduating 
in 1905. Since then has been engaged in the practice of his profession 
in Emporium. Residence, Emporium, Pa. 

Frazier, J. Miller, Chief of the Division of Hotels, Restaurants 
and Clubs. Bom in Versailles, Ky., and educated in its schools. 
Went to New York in 1902 as cashier and assistant to the president 

257 



of the Fasig-Tipton Company. Became associated with George C. 
Boldt of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel as credit manager and private 
secretary to Mr. Boldt. On the death of Lawrence McCormick came 
to Philadelphia as his successor as manager of the Bellevue-Stratford 
Hotel, which position he retained imtil last March, a period of neariy 
seven years. Was vice-president of the Philadelphia Hotel Associa- 
tion; president of the Pennsylvania State Hotel Association for over 
two years, and chairman of the American Hotel Exposition for two 
years. Was chairman of the hotel group during each Liberty Loan 
drive. At the head of hotels and restaurants in Pennsylvania under 
the Fuel Administration. In September, 1917, was appointed Chief 
of the Division of Hotels, Restaurants and Clubs for Pennsylvania in 
the Food Administration. Residence, Philadelphia, Pa. 

George, W. D., Federal Food Administrator for Allegheny County. 
Bom December 15, 1869, at Ginger Hill, Washington County. Edu- 
cated in public schools of Allegheny City. Graduated from high 
school 1887. Attended Western University of Pennsylvania, now 
University of Pittsburgh, for a short time. Started work as messenger 
in the Mechanics National Bank in 1887; left in 1890 to take a position 
in wholesale grocery house of WilUam K. Gillespie. In 1895 formed 
partnership of George Brothers with R. A. George, since deceased, in 
the real estate and insurance business. Director Peoples* National 
Bank and Vice-President and Director Peoples' Savings and Trust 
Company, Pittsburgh. Residence, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Griffith, William T., Administrator for Clinton County. Bom at 
East Kane, McKean County, December 4, 1877. Attended Bethlehem 
Preparatory School and Lehigh University, taking a course in Mining 
Engineering. In 1904 entered the lumber business in which he con- 
tinued for one year, after which he entered the mercantile field. In 
1911 opened a five- and ten-cent store in Lock Haven, which he con- 
tinues to operate. Was appointed Federal Food Administrator on 
January 14, 1918. Residence, Lock Haven. 

Haller, Frederick C, Chief of the Division of Bakeries and 
Member of the Executive Coimcil. Bom Pittsburgh, August 25, 1875. 
Educated in the public schools. Established a printing business, at the 
same time assisting his father in the baking business. Organized his 
sales routes for him and developed the business. Disposed of his 
printing interests, devoting his attention exclusively to baking and 
organized the Haller Baking Company, Inc., of which he was President 
and General Manager. Subsequently, merged into the General Baking 
Company, of which he is now President and General Manager, with a 
deliTcry system that covers Pittsburgh. Residence, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

258 



Hamilton, Samuel Armstrong, Food Administrator for Huntingdon 
County. Bom in Lewistown. Graduated from high school and entered 
the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad July 17, 1879, as assistant 
yardmaster at Selinsgrove, Pa. At present is freight and transfer 
agent at Huntingdon. Residence, Huntingdon, Pa. 

Heinz, Howard, Federal Food Administrator for Pennsylvania. Born 
August 27, 1877, at Sharpsburg, Pa. Son of Henry John Heinz and 
Sarah Sloane Young Heinz. Educated in public schools of Pittsburgh, 
Shadyside Academy and Yale University. On graduating became 
actively interested in H. J. Heinz & Company, working his way through 
each department until he is now First Vice-President. Interested in 
welfare work for boys and is President, Sarah Heinz House, Settlement 
Institution for boys, Pittsburgh. In May, 1917, appointed Director 
Department of Food Supply Committee of Public Safety of Pennsyl- 
vania; July 11th appointed Federal Food Administrator for Pennsyl- 
vania. Member War Industries Board, Eastern Pennsylvania Section; 
Vice-President United States Grain Corporation; President ZkDne No. 
3, including six states contiguous to Pennsylvania. Appointed Director 
American Relief Mission, January 1, 1919; since February, 1919, 
Director of the American Food Relief Administration for Southeastern 
Europe, with headquarters in Constantinople, Turkey. Residence, 
Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Hempstead, Ernest A., Food Administrator for Crawford County. 
Bom in Dimock, Susquehanna County, December 15, 1851. Graduated 
from Central High School of Philadelphia 1869; moved to Meadville 
in 1870 and became editor of the Crawford Journal in 1873. In 1909 
he retired from newspaper business. Postmaster of Meadville from 
1897 to 1910. Vice-President of the First National Bank of Meadville. 
Appointed Food Administrator for Crawford County, January, 1918. 
Residence, Meadville, Pa. 

Hepburn, Charles J., Chief Coimsel Federal Food Administration 
for Pennsylvania and Member of the Executive Council. Bom New 
York City during temporary residence of his parents, September 11, 
1872. Shortly after returned to Carlisle, Pa., where his father was 
leading member of the bar. Educated in private and public schools 
and at Dickinson College, class 1892. Studied law Columbia University 
— ^now George Washington University, Washington, D. C. Admitted 
to Cumberland Coimty Bar 1894; Bar of Supreme Court of Pennsyl- 
vania 1897; Philadelphia Bar 1897; in continuous practice in Phila- 
delphia ever since; now as Hepburn, Dechert & Norris. Appointed 
Chief Counsel for the Food Administration in Pennsylvania November, 
1917, and served imtil administration was demobilized. Residence, 
Philadelphia. 

259 



Hersh, Grier, Food Administrator for York County. Bom in 
York January 29, 1863. Graduated from Pennsylvania Military 
Academy, Chester, Pa., 1880, and from Princeton, 1884. President 
of the York National Bank and President of the Maryland Trust 
Company, Baltimore, Md.; President of the York Glass Company; 
Director York Water Company, and President Pennsylvania Bankers* 
Association. Appointed Food Administrator December, 1917. Resi- 
dence, York, Pa. 

Hershey, p. N., Administrator for Lebanon Coimty. Bom and 
reared on a farm in that county. Educated in the public schools and 
at Millersville State Normal School. Subsequently took a course 
in Kansas State Agricultural College. Engaged in milk and dairy busi- 
ness, subsequently becoming a manufacturer of ice cream in Lebanon, 
in which business he remained imtil 1913, when he disposed of his 
interests to the Hershey Chocolate Company, which concern made 
him Manager of their milk interests in the Lebanon District, which 
position he holds at the present time. Residence, Lebanon, Pa. 

HosKiNS, Thomas L., Administrator for Chester County. Bom 
August 2, 1882, in East Goshen Township, Chester County. Educated in 
the public schools of West Chester and graduated from high school 1 902. 
Entered Lafayette College in 1902, graduating in 1906. Studied law in 
the offices of Judge R. S. Gawthrop and admitted to the bar Chester 
Coimty, January 17, 1910. Residence, West Chester. 

Howard, Frederick A., Food Administrator for Delaware County. 
Bom in Maryland; moved to Chester in the late 60's. Educated in 
the public schools and Philadelphia Business College. Entered business 
with his father and brothers as commission merchants in Chester. 
Retired 1902. Appointed Commissioner to take soldier vote at Camp 
Hancock, Ga., in 1917, and to Camp Wadsworth, S. C, in 1918. 
Chairman of Food Supply Committee for Delaware County 1917. 
Residence, Chester, Pa. 

HuNGiviLLE, T. F., Administrator for McKean County. Bom in 
Keating Township, McKean County, January 11, 1863. Educated in 
the public schools and at Smethport Academy. Elected County Com- 
missioner, serving from 1894 to 1903. Since then engaged as con- 
tractor principally in building bridges. Member Council of National 
Defense and Committee of Public Safety of McKean Coimty. Resi- 
dence, Smethport, Pa. 

Jackson, John Rossell, Food Administrator for Fulton County- 
Bom May 8, 1881, at Akersville, Fulton County. His mother's name 
was Martha Hanks and belonged to the same family as Lincoln's 
mother. Raised on a farm and when seventeen years of age went 
West. In 1901 graduated from business college at Emporia, Kansas. 

'260 



Later attended Dickinson College and graduated in 1911, Law Depart- 
ment. Member of the bar of Fulton County. Residence, McConnells- 
burg, Pa. 

King, Dr. Clyde Lyndon, Milk Commissioner for Pennsylvania. 
Bom Burlington, Kansas, May 1, 1879. Educated in Kansas State 
Normal School, Emporia, and University of Michigan, 1907; 1908 
Harrison Fellow, University of Pennsylvania; Acting Professor of 
Economics and Sociology, University of Colorado, 1908-10; Instructor 
in Political Science, University of Pennsylvania, 1911-14, and Assistant 
Professor since 1914. Milk Commissioner for Pennsylvania; Milk 
Commissioner by appointment of Herbert Hoover for Eastern States. 
Member of various committees of National Food Administration, 
Washington; Chairman Tri-State Milk Commission for Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey and Delaware 1916-18; Author, "History of the Govern- 
ment of Denver," "Regulation of Municipal Utilities," "Trolley 
Freight and Philadelphia Markets," "Lower Living Costs in Cities.** 
Residence, Media, Pa. 

Klein, Conrad, Administrator for Erie County. Bom New York 
City and educated in public schools. Purchasing agent for Bamum 
and Bailey circus when twenty years of age. Toured Germany as 
advance representative in 1898; later became manager Continental 
Hotel, Newark, N. J., and in 1905 became owner of the Reed House 
in Erie, Pa.; January 1, 1915, opened Berkshire Hotel in Reading, Pa. 
Appointed Food Administrator, January 8, 1918. Residence, Erie, Pa. 

Kline, J. Simpson, Administrator for Northumberland County. 
Bom in Upper Augusta Township, Northumberland Coimty, on a farm. 
As his early years were spent on a farm he is still interested in farms 
and the production of food. Attended Lafayette College and afterward 
read law and was admitted to the bar. Has practiced in Sunbury since 
1892. Is a director of the First National Bank of Sunbury; President 
of the Northumberland County Railway Company; director of the 
Gas Company of Northumberland and is connected with a ntmiber of 
other industries. Appointed Food Administrator for Northumberland 
County January, 1918. Residence, Sunbury, Pa. 

Lea, Mrs. Charlotte Augusta, Chief of Women's Division Federal 
Food Administration for Pennsylvania. Daughter of Dr. Henry St. 
George Hopkins, Winchester, Va., and Catherine Christina Brown of 
Philadelphia. Married 1895, Charles Matthew Lea of Philadelphia- 
Educated in France and Germany and under care of private tutors. 
At outbreak of war engaged in Woman's Work in the Food Administra- 
tion January, 1918; subsequently, appointed Chief of Woman's Divi- 
sion, which position she retained to the close of the war. Residence, 
Philadelphia. 

261 



LiNviLLE, W. B., Administrator for Columbia County. Bom 
October 3, 1868, in Reading. Later his parents moved to Northumber- 
land. Educated in the public schools, and Chafifee Institute, Oswego, 
N. Y. Held positions with Seaboard Air Line Railroad Company, 
Western Railroad Company, and Georgia Railroad Company; also 
with United Gas Improvement Company of Philadelphia. In 1906 
was appointed court stenographer of the Twenty-sixth Judicial 
District of Pennsylvania and was reappointed to same position, 
January, 1918. Home, Bloomsburg, Pa. 

LocKHART, James L., Federal Food Administrator for Washington 
Coimty. Bom Washington, Pa., 1863. Educated in the public schools 
of that place and Washington and JeflFerson College. Leaving college 
in 1880, entered the retail mercantile business in which he remained 
imtil 1906. Since then been engaged in the manufacturing business, 
being connected in ofiQcial capacity with several of the industries of 
that city. Was appointed Food Administrator for Washington Coimty 
January, 1918. Home, Washington, Pa. 

Markley, E. H., Administrator for Adams Coimty. Engaged 
in mercantile business for several years while a young man. Then 
entered Dental Department of the University of Maryland, graduating 
in 1895. Practiced dentistry ever since. Identified with various 
enterprises in his native county; helped to organize Merchants* Bank 
of New Oxford, of which he is still a director. Appointed Food Admin- 
istrator for Adams County, January 8, 1918. 

Marvin, Alfred, Administrator for Pike County. Bom April 11, 
1873, at Port Jarvis, N. Y. In 1883 moved to Pike County, Pa. 
Graduated from New York University Law School 1896 and admitted 
to the New York State Bar in First Department Supreme Court in 
the same year. Elected to Pennsylvania House of Representatives 
1906 and re-elected in 1908. Engaged since 1896 in active practice of 
law at Port Jarvis, New York. Residence, Matamoras, Pa. 

McCain, George Nox, Director of the Division of Press News for 
Pennsylvania and member of Executive Council. Bom Pittsburgh, 1856. 
Educated, in public schools and Western Pennsylvania Classical and 
Scientific Institute. Connected with Pittsburgh newspapers from 1879 
to 1889 as city editor and New York and Washington Correspondent; for 
seventeen years on Editorial Staff of Philadelphia Press. Lieutenant- 
Colonel and A. D. C. for four years on Staff of Governor D. H 
Hastings. 1903-05 Editor and Publisher Colorado Springs Daily 
Gazette. Traveled in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America 1906-14. 
Author, "Through the Great Campaign," "The Crimson Dice," etc. 

Mentzer, H. H., Administrator for Cumberland County. Ed- 
ucated in the public schools, after which he took a course in Com- 

262 



mercial Training in Philadelphia. Graduated from the Philadelphia 
College of Pharmacy, class of 1893. Manager of City Hall Pharmacy, 
Philadelphia, and later elected Dean of the Department of Pharmacy of 
the Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia. In 1908, because of brokea 
health, removed to his native town Carlisle, Pa. Residence, Carlisle. 
MossER, George K., Administrator for Lehigh Coimty. Bom 
in AUentown, Pa., December 7, 1862. Educated in the public schools, 
the preparatory school attached to Muhlenberg College and at Muhlen- 
berg College, AUentown. After leaving college, assisted his father in 
the tanning business at AUentown. In 1890, the J. K. Mosser Com- 
pany established a tannery at Noxen, Wyoming County, and he was 
placed in charge until 1914, when the Mossers disposed of their interests. 
Purchased a farm at Trexlertown, near AUentown, to which he moved 
with his family in 1915. Is a director of the Lehigh Portland Cement 
Company and Lehigh Valley Trust Company; also interested in the 
Lehigh Brick Works, AUentown. 

Murray, Robert J., Administrator for Wayne County. Bom 
Brook Farm, Cherry Ridge, May 21, 1880. Educated in public schools 
of Honesdale, Pa. Went into business with his father and brothers as 
hardware merchants, and is now Manager of the Murray Company, 
largest concern in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Been identified with 
other war-time activities. Appointed Food Administrator for Wayne 
County February 1, 1918. Residence, Honesdale, Pa. 

Nauman, John A., Associate Counsel. Bom October 4, 1876, in 
Lancaster. Educated in pubHc schools of Lancaster City. Entered 
Franklin and Marshall College in 1892; graduated 1896, with a degree of 
A.B.; given a degree of A.M. by same college in 1899. Studied law in 
the office of his father, George Nauman, and was admitted to practice 
in September, 1899. Practiced in Lancaster ever since. Married in 
April, 1906, to Elisabeth Hensel, daughter of W. U. Hensel. Member 
Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity; also Phi Beta Kappa. Residence, Lancaster. 
Neely, J. Howard, Food Administrator for Juniata County. Bom 
September 7, 1858, in Tuscarora Township, Juniata County. Educated 
in the public schools, Millersville State Normal School, and Princeton 
University from which he graduated in 1884. Studied law and was 
admitted to the bar in 1886. He has two sons. Lieutenant J. Howard 
Neely, a graduate of Princeton, now an aerial observer in France, and 
Lieutenant WiUiam H. Neely, air pilot in France, who fought through 
the Argonne Campaign. Residence, Mifflintown, Pa. 

Palmer, C. Howard, Administrator for Monroe County. Bom in 
Stroudsburg 1856. Educated in the public schools. His first work 
was in a lumber camp in charge of commissary and time departments. 
Opened a general merchandise store in connection with the grocery 

263 



business and continued this for twelve years. Resides on a farm but 
operates a summer hotel at the present time. Devoted practically all 
of his time to the Food Administration work, operating his hotel 
through a manager. Residence, Stroudsburg, Pa. 

Phillips, M. T., Farmer's Representative and Member of the Execu- 
tive Council. Bom March 5, 1867, Chester Coimty. Spent early life 
on a farm, later was employed for eleven years as clerk in Philadelphia. 
About twenty years ago purchased the farm on which he has since 
resided at Pomeroy. Specializes in breeding of Guernsey cattle; also 
operates machine shop. Member of the Agricultural Commission. 
President of the Farmer's Bank of Parkesburg. Residence, Pomeroy, Pa. 
Reynolds, W. Fred, Food Administrator for Center County. Bom 
Lancaster, Pa., and moved to Belief onte at an early age. At one time 
was the largest individual holder of farm lands in that county. Special- 
ized in the rearing of pedigreed, draft and saddle horses. Vice-President 
First National Bank of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania Match Company. 
President Red Cross Chapter and Chairman of Council of National 
Defense and Committee of Public Safety of Pennsylvania in Center 
County. Had two sons in the World War. Been identified with all 
war-time activities. Lieutenant-Colonel on Staff of Governor Daniel 
H. Hastings. Brigade Ordnance Officer, State Reserve Militia. 
Apf>ointcd Federal Food Administrator for Center County January, 
1918. Residence, Bellefonte. 

Rockwell, Frank H., Administrator for Tioga Coimty. Bom at 
Cherry Flats, Tioga County, March 3, 1865. Educated in the public 
schools and Wellsboro High School. Studied law in the office of 
Elliot & Watrous, Wellsboro, Pa., and admitted to the bar in 1891. 
Elected District Attorney of Tioga County 1901. Elected to the House 
of Representatives in 1908 and 1910 and re-elected in November, 
1 912. Home, Wellsboro, Pa. 

RousH, Guy F., Federal Food Administrator for Union County; 
Chairman Union County Food Supply Committee. Bom in Rebers- 
burg. Center County, October 1, 1874. Traveling salesman for eighteen 
years. Served in the Spanish- American War in 1898 as a private in 
Company D, 8th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Was appointed Food 
Administrator January 17, 1918. Home, Mifflinburg, Pa. 

ScHOTTE, Carl Benj., bom in Kittanning, Pa., November 14, 1868. 
Educated in the public schools. Entered hardware firm of E. R. 
McConnell; the following year he formed a partnership with George 
S. Rohrer in the drug business and at the present time is President 
and Treasurer of this firm. Secretary and General Manager Kittanning 
Telephone Company. Appointed Food Administrator for Armstrong 
County July 3, 1918. 

264 



SCHROYER, Richard L., Federal Food Administrator for Snyder 
County. Bom in Selinsgrove December 8, 1868. Educated in public 
schools and Susquehanna University. Graduated from BuckneU 
University 1890. Principal of the public schools at Middleburg, Snyder 
Cotmty. Now engaged in general insurance business. Director and 
Secretary Board of Directors of Susquehanna University. In 1916 he 
was elected Mayor of Selinsgrove. Appointed Administrator for 
Snyder County, January, 1918. 

Sewell, Robert, Chief of the Division of Investigation, Philadelphia. 
Bom 1871 in Camden, N. J., son of late United States Senator W. J. 
Sewell. Educated in public and private schools; graduated from 
Cheltenham Academy. Became scalemaster Pennsylvania Railroad 
and assistant to the cashier at West Philadelphia Freight Station. 
Entered United States Army by civil appointment as Second Lieutenant 
of cavalry Jime 17, 1892; First Lieutenant 1898; Captain and 
Assistant Quartermaster 1900. Resigned from the Army in 1908. 
Director Jenkintown National Bank; Member Board of Trustees and 
Treasurer of Abington Memorial Hospital. Residence, Rydal, Pa. 

Shallcross, Thomas, Jr., Director of Food Conservation. Bom in 
Philadelphia, 1875. Educated Public Schools and Friends' Central 
School. Vice-President Wm. H. W. Quick & Bro., Inc., and connected 
with the firm since 1900. Memger Union League and Manufacturers' 
Club; President Kiwanis Club; Vice-President Philadelphia Real 
Estate Board; former President National Association Real Estate 
Board; Director Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Co., and Philadelphia 
Chamber of Commerce. Following resignation from Food Administra- 
tion was appointed U. S. official negotiator in buying lands in various 
sections of the country; on war board for National Association of Real 
Estate Board; Chairman of Appraisal Committee for Philadelphia for 
Alien property custodian. Residence, Philadelphia. 

Short, John F. Bora Clearfield, Clearfield County. Entered the 
newspaper business and held positions in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and 
Philadelphia. Editor and publisher Clearfield Republican. Appointed 
administrator for Clearfield County in 1917. Resigned in the fall of 
1918 to accept the Presidential appointment of United States Marshall 
for the Western District of Pennsylvania. 

Stark, Dexter W., Federal Food Administrator for Wyoming 
County. Born Springville Township, Susquehanna County, October 
6, 1849. Educated in the public schools. In 1879 began as traveling 
salesman and later became a manufacturer of yams. At present is 
President and General Manager of the Winola Worsted Yam Mills, 
Tunkhannock, Pa. Appointed Food Administrator for Wyoming 
County in March, 1918. 

265 



Stewart, Ralph Chambers, Associate Counsel. Born Jime IS, 
1878, in Philadelphia. Attended pubHc schools and William Pen» 
Charter School. Graduated from University of Pennsylvania, degree 
A.B., in 1899. Graduated from Law Department, University of Penn- 
sylvania, degree LL.B., in 1902. Member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon 
Fraternity. Has practiced law in Philadelphia since 1902. At the 
time of becoming associate counsel for United States Food Adminis- 
tration in Pennsylvania, in September, 1918, was also Government 
Field Agent for Local Draft Board No. 22, Philadelphia. Director of 
the Federal Trust Company and Delaware Insurance Company. 
Member of the Union League, Art Club, University Club, City Club, 
all of Philadelphia; Merion Cricket Club, Germantown Cricket Club, 
Atlantic Yacht Club and Lotos Club of New York; Automobile Club 
of America; director and member of the Executive Committee of the 
American Kennel Club of New York. Member of the Franklin Insti* 
tute. Also member of the Quaker City Motor Club, Seaview Golf 
Club, Country Club of Lansdowne and Racquet Club of Philadelphia, 
Residence, Philadelphia. 

Stinson, C. Henry, Administrator for Montgomery County. Bom 
March, 1863, in Norristown. Educated in the pubHc schools and grad- 
uated from Lehigh University in 1883. Read law with his father and was 
admitted to bar Jtme, 1886, and has practiced continuously ever since. 
Has been referee in bankruptcy since 1898; counsel of Pennsylvania 
Railroad Company and President of the First National Bank of Norris- 
town. Was Superintendent of Volimteer Home Defense Police of Mont- 
gomery County and Chairman of the Executive Conmiittee of the 
Norristown Branch of the Red Cross. Residence, Norristown, Pa. 

Stockwell, Herbert Grant, Chief of the Division of Audits and 
Accounts and Member of the Executive Council. Bom Northampton, 
Mass., September 1, 1866. Educated in the public and high schools. 
Studied law in Philadelphia and was National Bank Examiner 1894-99. 
Admitted to the Bar of Philadelphia, also Bar of the United States 
Courts, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Subsequently, 
became interested in pubhc accounting; President Pennsylvania 
Institute of Certified Public Accotmtants; Member of the Council of 
the American Institute of Accotmtants; now head of Stockwell, Wilson 
& Linvill. Author, "Essential Elements of Business Character," "Net 
Worth and the Balance Sheet." Lecturer on Higher Accounting 
University of Pennsylvania, 1903-06. Home, Merion, Pa. 

Swank, H. D., Food Administrator for Montour Coimty. Bom 
Danville, Pa., January 18, 1886. Educated in the pubUc schools and 
graduated from Peirce's School, Philadelphia, in June, 1904. Has 
followed office work to date and has filled all the different inside posi- 

266 



tions with the American Swedo-Iron Company. Appointed Food 
Administrator for Montour County, January 23, 1918, at the sugges- 
tion of the Chairman of the Montour Coimty Branch of the Penn- 
sylvania Council of National Defense. Residence, Danville, Pa. 

Thompson, A. Walter, Administrator for Mifflin County. Bom in 
Milroy, Mifflin County, in 1870, of a long line of Scotch ancestry. 
Educated in public schools and Lewistown Academy and the West 
Jersey Academy at Bridgeton, N. J. His entire Hfe since leaving 
school has been spent in the manufacturing of hosiery, with mills at 
Lewistown and Milroy, Pa. Been identified with nearly all war-time 
activities. Was appointed Food Administrator on the recommendation 
of the Council of National Defense and Committee of Public Safety, 
December, 1917. Residence, Lewistown, Pa. 

Todd, W. D., Food Administrator for Warren County. Bom in 
Coming, N. Y., 1854, and came to Warren, Pa., in 1886. Organized 
the Complanter Refinery and was its General Manager. Organized 
the Ax and Tool Company of Warren, and was its President for twelve 
years. Has been, and is still, actively engaged in the production and 
refining of oil in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. Appointed Food Admin- 
istrator February, 1918. Address, Warren, Pa. 

Van Artsdalen, Isaac J., Food Administrator of Bucks County. 
Bom at Woodboume, Bucks County, June 12, 1880. Read law with 
the firm of Ross & Long, of Doylestown. In 1914 formed a partnership 
with Calvin S. Boyer, District Attorney of Bucks County. Was one 
of the directors of the Bucks County Bar Association. Appointed 
Food Administrator for Bucks Coimty July 1, 1918. Residence, 
Doylestown, Pa. 

Washburn, William O., Administrator of Luzerne County. Bom 
April 13, 1869, at Brookdale, Susquehanna County. Educated in the 
public schools and was a student for three years at Wyoming Seminary, 
Kingston, Pa. On leaving the seminary he entered the service of the 
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, New York, in November, 
1889, and has been continuously connected with that company since. 
Was its representative in Philadelphia, also in the Middle West, includ- 
ing Illinois and Indiana. For three years was agent with powers of 
attorney for the Province of Ontario with headquarters in Toronto, 
Canada. Residence, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. 

Wheelock, Lewis W., State Merchants' Representative, headquar- 
ters, Philadelphia. Member of the Staff of the Philadelphia Press and 
the Philadelphia Inquirer; subsequently with N.W. Ayer & Sons, Adver- 
tising Agents. Left to establish an agency of his own; now Advertising 
Manager of Stephen F. Whitman and Sons. Residence, Philadelphia. 

Wilson, Walter W., Food Administrator for Clarion County. 

267 



Bom November 14, 1874, at Helen Furnace. Educated in Clarion State 
Normal School, Kiskimetas Springs School, Saltsburg, Pa., and Prince- 
ton University, graduating in 1 897. Entered University of Pennsylvania 
Law School, graduating in 1901; practices in the County Courts and 
the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. President Clarion Water Com- 
pany and Vice-President Upper Sandusky Water Company. Home, 
Clarion, Pa. 

Williams, C. K., Food Administrator for Northampton Coimty. 
Bom in Montgomery Cotmty, near Fort Washington, 1862. Educated 
in private schools and Ambler Academy. Shortly after leaving school 
entered business with his father in the manufacture of dry colors, 
fillers, chemicals for paper manufacturers, etc., at Easton, Pa. Engaged 
in it since 1884. Original output one and a half tons per day, present 
output one himdred and fifty tons per day. Operate mines, quarries, 
manufacturing plants, etc., in various parts of the United States. 
Appointed Food Administrator for Northampton County June, 1918. 
Residence, Easton, Pa. 

WiNSLOW, William Warren, Administrator for Jefferson County. 
Bom May 7, 1 862, at Punxsutawney. Educated at Shortlidge Academy, 
Media, and graduated from Harvard in 1885. Subsequently, spent a 
year in Harvard Law School and has conducted a law practice ever 
since. Vice-President of the Punxsutawney National Bank. Residence, 
Pimxsutawney, Pa. 

WisECARVER, T. J., Administrator for Greene County. Bom in 
Franklin Township, Greene County, on the 11th of May, 1856; is a 
member of one of the pioneer families of Southwestern Pennsylvania, 
his grandfather having settled there about the year 1800, coming from 
Virginia. Mr. Wisecarver is a prominent real estate man, holding 
property all over the southwestern comer of the state. Is director of 
one of the largest banks in the coimty and trustee of Waynesburg 
College. Appointed Food Administrator for Greene Cotmty in January, 
1918, and devoted his time exclusively to the work of the administra- 
tion to the close of the war. Residence, Waynesburg, Pa. 

Wright, Montgomery H., Director Division of Education and 
Member of the Executive Council. Bom Philadelphia, 1 880. Educated 
in the public schools. On the Philadelphia North American 1898-1901. 
In charge of North American ReUef to Galveston September, 1900; 
with N. W. Ayer & Son, Philadelphia, 1901-11; since 1911 with John 
B. Stetson & Company as Advertising Director and in charge of welfare 
activities. Director Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce; Member of 
Executive Committee National Association of Corporation Schools; Na- 
tional Advertising Managers. Appointed Director of Public Information 
Federal Food Administration, January 19,1918. Residence, Philadelphia. 

268 



INDEX 



Administration, Organization, 19, 

20 
Administrators, Selection of, 13 
Advisory Committee, 23, 50 
Agricultural Commission, 89 
Agriculture and Labor, Dept. of, 

10, 88 
Allman, Herbert D., 130, 133 
Appropriations, 19, 51 
Armistice, The, 248 
Assistants, 7 
Atmore, Craig, 95 
Audits and Accounts, Division of, 

III 

B 

Babcock, E. V., 23 
Bacon, J. E., 130, 131 
Bakeries, 9 

Bakeries, Division of, 151 
Baldi, C. C. A., 140 
Barclay, John, 243, 253 
Beamish, Richard J., 140 
Beatty, E. C, 186, 253 
Beerits, J. H., 34, 88, 99, 251 
Belin, E. B., 180, 253 
Bellevue-Stratford Conferences, 

103 
Bennett, James M., 140 
Beyer, A. F., 253 
Bigler, A. D., 196, 252 
Blakeslee, Harry A., 201, 252 
Boden, Mrs. H. C, 93, 148 
Boyer, H. K., 253 
Bredin, E. M., 252 
Bribes and Bribery, 81 



Brinton, Miss Ellen, 149 
Brodhead, A., 167, 253 
Brodhead, R. P., 166 
Brown, Jos. P., 250 
Brown, Reynolds D., 65, 250 
Brumbaugh Gov. Martin G., 19 
BuJBSngton, Judge Joseph, 23 
Burnett, J. K., 142 
Bushong, M. E., 23, 232, 253 



Camp, L. F., 253 
Carpenter, P. L., 189, 252 
Cartwright, R. A., 185, 252 
Cash and Carry System, icx> 
Clause, W. L., 23 
Clayton, A. H., 252 
Clubs and Cafes, 9 
Coal Miners Protest, 70, 204 
Cobb, Dorr R., 238, 253 
Collins, Herman L., 140 
Comedy Element, The, 129 
Commercial Economy, Division 

of, 154 
Committee of Public Safety, 15 

I9»49» 51 
Community Markets, 25 
Connor, W. A., 140 
Conservation, Division of, 90 
Conservation Train, 94 
Cooke, Jay, 33, 34, 35, 43, 45, 47, 

59, 68, 71, 73, 93, 123, 147, 17s 

253 
Cornell, W. W., 252 
Council, The Executor, 30, 37, 69 
Council of National Defense, 1$ 

19, 49, 88 



269 



County Administration, Division 

of, 96 
Court-Administration, 9, 75, 81 
Courtney, Addison, 209, 252 
Craig, W. B., 140 
Crawford, J. G., 253 
Criticism, 8, 11, 16, 21, 52 
Crutchfield, J. S., 23, 24, 32, 34, 

35» 54. 68, 70, 85, 88, 99, 250 
Curb Markets, 10, 89 



D 

Dairy Feeds, 105 

Davidson, C. L., 252 

Davies, Chas. I., 156, 252 

Davis, J. D., 252 

Dehydration, Food Saving, 95 

Denny, H. A., 253 

Department of Food Supply, 19 

Dolan, Hugh, 253 

Dorwart, Rev. William, 171, 253 

Dow, L. S., 34, 35, 36 

Draft limit, 12 

Dunn, Houston, 34, 35, 120, 251 

Dwyer, John P., 140 



Fell, U. M., 252 
Felt, Dr. Leon R., 252 
Fifty-fifty flour ruling, 69 
Fines, Executive Council, 32, 33 
Finley, J. A., 27 
Flour, Survey of, 45 
Flour Substitutes, 69, 125, 151 
Food Administration Act, 26 
Food Conservation train, 94 
Food Supply, Department of, 20, 

50,94 
Four minute men, 91, 93, 150 
Frazier, J. Miller, 34, 43, 116, 251 
Fry, H. P., 95 



Garber, Chas., 88, 153, 251 
Gelino, A. F., 88, 99, 251 
George, W. D., 245, 252 
Gillespie, Stanley A., 234, 253 
Glenn, G. B., 252 
Grain Threshing, Division of, 153 
Grange, State, 89 
Grifliith, W. T., 236, 252 
Grocers, Retail, 68, 112 
Guthrie, W. A., 253 



Education, Division of, 97 
Elcock, Thos. R., 34, 92, 250 
Eliason, W. W., 27 
Emblem, 6 

Enforcement, Division of, 9 
Ewing, C. B., 23 
Expenses, 15, 55 
Experts, 6, 7, 8 



Fairs, Food booths at, 95 
Farm Extension Bureau, 10 
Farmers, 120, 204 
Fell, E. Lawrence, 154, 251 



H 

Haller, Yred. C, 34, 151, 251 

Hamilton, S. A., 252 

Heinz, Howard, 9, 11, 17, 19, 20, 

21, 24, 26, 31, 35, 45, 54, 67, 

87, 120, 163, 171, 234, 250 
Hempstead, E. A., 252 
Hepburn, Chas. J., 17, 28, 34, 35, 

45» 47» 56, 57» 68, 76, 123, 156, 

250 
Hersh, Grier, 253 
Hershey, P. N., 229, 253 
Home cards, 147 
Hotels, Restaurants and Cafes, 

Division of, 43, 116 



270 



Hoover, Herbert, 25, 26, 30, 35, 

40,85 
Hoskins, T. L., 252 
Howard, F. A., 252 
Hungiville, T. A., 253 
Hulings, Miss Florence, 97, 251 
Hunter, Edward J., 140 

I 

Ice Supply, 67, 71, 72 
Incidents, Unpublished, 39 
Influenza, Epidemic of, 51, 123 
Inside facts, 1 1 1 
Insignia, 6 

Inspectors, County, 9 
Investigators, County, Division 

of, 122 
Investigation, Division of, 9 
Investigators, Capt. SewelKs, 79, 

80 



Jackson, John Rossell, 219, 252 
Jamison, W. P., 88 

K 
Keppleman, J. A., 252 
King, Prof. Clyde L., 34, 36, 106, 

251 
Klein, Conrad, 252 
Kline, J. Simpson, 216, 252 



Lacy, Maurice, 33, 123 
Landes, W. G., 150, 251 
Lawson, J. H., 252 
Lea, Mrs. Chas. M., 23, 146, 251 
Legal department, 9, 60, 78 
Lex, J. Barclay, 76, 78, 81, 83, 

132, 250 
License System, 58, 249 
Linville, W. B., 190, 252 



Lloyd, Stacy B., 65, 250 
Lockhart, James L., 176, 253 
Loose leaf system, 62 
Luncheon, Mid-Day Conference, 
52,53 

M 

MacBride, W. C, 27, 251 

MacDonald, Miss Pearl, 95, 251 

MacSparren, John, 23 

Margins of Profit System, 100 

Markets, 85 

Martin, B. T., 253 

Martin, M. J., 180 

Markley, E. H., 252 

Marvin, Alfred, 253 

McCain, Geo. Nox, 34, 141, 251 

McClain, Lieut.-Gov. F. B., 23, 

233 
McClelland, Dr. William, 155, 251 
McCormick, Donald, 252 
McDowell, M. S., 23 
McDowell, Prof. M. S., 251 
McKee, Jno. A., 253 
Mellon, A. W., 23 
Mentzer, Dr. H. H., 252 
Merchants' Organizations, 98 
Milk, 9, 102, 106 
Miller, C. P., 252 
Minnich, J. N., 252 
Mosser, Geo. K., 183, 253 
Motion pictures, 98 
Mumford, J. O., 215 
Murray, Robt. J., 212, 253 

N 

Nauman, John A., 64, 250 
Neely, J. Howard, 241, 253 
Norris, Henry Pepper, 64, 250 
Newspapers, 10, 16, 45, 53, 80, 

90, 139, 143, 247 
New York State Food Law, 59 



271 



o 

Origin Red Cross Penalty, 6i 



Page, W. T., oo 
Palmer, C. Howard, 199 
Palmer, C. Howard, 253 
Parnell, J. E., 253 
Pennypacker, Gov. Samuel W., 

S6 
Pepper, Geo. Wharton, 19, 25, 49 
Philadelphia, 40, 42, 52, 67, iii 
Phillips, M. L., 36, 88, 102, 251 
Pledge Card Campaign, 94 
Political Influence, 13 
PoHtical Parties, 13 
Press News, Division of, 44, 82, 

139 _ 
Price Fixing Committees, 99 
Price Interpretation, 99 
Profiteers, 99, 100 
Public Schools, 52, 186 

R 

Railroads, 9 

Rasmussen, Frederick, 34, 35, 

102, 251 
Red Cross, 90 
Red Cross Penalty, 17, 61 
Reighard, S. S., 252 
Resignations and Exemptions, 13 
Retail Grocers, 68, 112 
Reynolds, W. Fred., 206, 252 
Rivinus, F. Marcoe, 63, 64, 251 
Rockwell, F. H., 253 
Ross, A. B., 88 
Roush, Guy F., 253 

S 

Sadler, Lewis S., 23, 49 
Scott, Mrs. Anna B., 98 
Scott, Ross R., 253 



Schotte, Karl D., 252 

Second Offenses, 1 1 

Secret Service, 9, 75 

Sewell, Robert, 75 

Shallcross, Thos. Jr., 34, 35, 90, 

250 
Short, John F., 191, 252 
Shroyer, R. L., 253 
Sign Boards, Food, 94 
Smiley, David E., 140 
Smith, J. Russell, 23 
Smith, Robert P., 34, 35, 88, 125, 

240, 250 
Spurgeon, J. J., 140 
Sproul, Gov. W. S., 23, 105 
Staff, The, 5 

Statistics of Food Saved, 117 
Statistics of Volunteers, 96 
State College, 10, 89, 92, 105 
Stark, Dexter W., 253 
Sterling, Edmund J., 140 
Stewart, Ralph Chambers, 65, 66, 

250 
Stinson, C. Henry, 253 
Stockwell, Herbert G., 17, 34, 3$, 

III, 170, 251 
Strike, Milk, 108 
Sugar Division, 129, 131 
Sunday Schools, 150 
Swank, H. D., 253 



Thompson, A. W., 196, 253 
Trade Distribution, Division of, 

125 
Train, Food Conservation, 10, 94 
Tustin, E. L., 23 
Tyson, C. J., 34, 36, 88, 102, 251 



Unfair order, 17, 58 
University of Pennsylvania, 106 



272 



Van Artsdalen, I. J., 252 
Van Valkenburg, E. A., 140 
Volunteers, 7 
Volunteers, Division Chiefs, 15 

W 

Waite, Geo., 140 
War Gardens, 25 
Washburn, W. O., 164, 253 
Whaley, P. H., 140 
Wheelock, L. W., 98, 251 
Whitecar, F. C, 140 
Williams, C. K., 130, 167, 253 
Willock, H. H., 33, 36, 95, 250 
Wilkinson, Jos. R., 98 



Wilson, Walter W., 252 
Window Demonstrations, 98 
Winslow, W. W., 226, 253 
Wisecarver, T. J., 222, 252 
Woman's Food Army, 93, 147 
Woman's Work, 28, 146 
Wright, M. H., 34, 97, 251 



X 



Zone No. 3, 106 
Zoning Philadelphia, 124 



273 




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